Concern about Judaizing in Academic Treatises on the Law, c. 1130-c. 1230
Author(s): Sean Eisen Murphy
Source: Speculum, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Jul., 2007), pp. 560-594
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of
America
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Concern about Judaizing in
Academic Treatises on the Law,
c. 1130-c. 1230
By Sean Eisen Murphy
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets. I have
come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Matthew 5.1 7
1. CONCERNS ABOUT JUDAIZING IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY:
PRACTICAL JEWISHNESS
Accusations, admonitions, remonstrations, and reminders: when one begins to
analyze the varieties of Christian anti-Judaizing texts written between the early
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, it is soon evident that, while individual
Judaizers may be hard to find-and self-identifying Judaizers, of course, nonex
istent-concerns about Judaizing are everywhere.1 Responses to perceived threats
of Judaizing became, it almost seems, as basic to learned manifestations of ma
jority religious culture in twelfth- and early-thirteenth-century Christianity as ac
cusations of heresy or debates about doctrinal terms and concepts.2 The perceived
An early version of this paper was presented at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in July
2004; I thank the members of the audience there for their warm interest. I am especially grateful to
David Nirenberg, who has twice commented on this paper in his characteristically insightful way.
Joseph Goering also deserves my abundant thanks for the very close reading he gave this paper; his
thorough and challenging written comments forced me to reconsider my language and argument
throughout. The detailed comments received from two anonymous readers for Speculum inspired
further revisions and additions. Finally, my debt to Claudia Eisen Murphy, who shaped this paper in
countless ways, only increases.
1 A word about the word "Judaizer" and its forms: "Judaizer" is, of course, a polemical term, not
an objective description, used with offensive intent from the first century forward by writers who
identify themselves as Christians. Typically, the individuals or groups targeted by the term would
identify themselves (or would be imagined as doing so by their opponents) as Christians, though there
are also cases in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (some cited below) in which the term is used
against Muslims and even Jews. For those reasons, the term "Judaizer" should be read throughout
this paper as enclosed in quotation marks. Only a concern about typographical clutter makes the
marks invisible. The same point must be made about the term "Jewishness," which, though only rarely
found in the texts studied here, I frequently use to describe the hostile perceptions that inform accu
sations of "Judaizing" made by twelfth- and thirteenth-century Christians. "Jewishness," in this con
text, describes a negatively evaluated condition perceived as inhering in the "Judaizer" or "Judaizing"
ideas.
2 Though there are a number of studies that touch on the topic, some of which are cited in the notes
below, there is little sustained scholarship on twelfth-century concerns about Judaizing. On some of
the uses of "Jewishness" in fifteenth-century Spain, see David Nirenberg, "Figures of Thought and
Figures of Flesh: 'Jews' and 'Judaism' in Late-Medieval Spanish Poetry and Politics," Speculum 81
(2006), 398-426.
560 Speculum 82 (2007)
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Concern about Judaizing 561
Judaizer is, in these texts, sometimes a practical threat to Christianity but m
typically an ideological one.
One obvious source of concern was conversion from Judaism to Christian
in the eyes of those concerned about Jewishness in Christianity, there was the n
infrequent problem of imperfect conversion. This is, of course, an old, ev
foundational problem in the history of Christian self-definition. The threa
excessive Jewishness among Christians is identified, repressed, and the very
cess of identification and repression recorded in the authoritative account
Christian origins and doctrine.3 This old problem was newly reformulated i
second decade of the thirteenth century, when recent conversions from Ju
to Christianity prompted a definitive statement on the subject of Judaizing form
Jews from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Like definitive policy statemen
other times and places, canon 70 of Lateran IV is urgent, resolute, and vagu
Certain people who have come voluntarily to the waters of sacred baptism, as we le
do not wholly cast off the old person in order to put on the new more perfectly. Fo
keeping remnants of their former rite, they upset the decorum of the christian reli
by such a mixing. Since it is written, cursed is he who enters the land by two paths,
a garment that is woven from linen and wool together should not be put on, we ther
decree that such people shall be wholly prevented by the prelates of churches f
observing their old rite, so that those who freely offered themselves to the chri
religion may be kept to its observance by a salutary and necessary coercion. For i
lesser evil not to know the Lord's way than to go back on it after having known i
The motivating forces behind the canon, the imagined forms and mechani
of its implementation, even the particulars of the "old rite" remain unspecif
But it is the very imprecision of the canon, issued as it was by the most em
supranational body of religio-political leadership in western Christendom,
testifies to the spread of concern about what is represented here as an indet
nate and, thus, ubiquitous threat.6
3 See the debate over Christian observance of circumcision and other elements of the Mosaic la
Acts 15; Romans, especially 2-4 and 7; 1 Cor. 7.18-20; Gal. 5-6; Phil. 3; and Col. 2.
4 Norman P. Tanner, ed. and trans., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (London, 1
1:267.
5 Such is not consistently the case with Lateran IV's canons. On the definition of the divine essence,
for example, Joachim of Fiore was condemned and Peter Lombard vindicated, both by name. (See
canon 2.) The three canons immediately preceding the seventieth?now-infamous restrictions on Jew
ish engagement in public affairs (moneylending, dress, appearances during Holy Week, and holding
of public office)?are more specific, at least with respect to what was being prohibited and, in some
cases, how transgressions were to be punished. The final canon, a call for "liberation of the Holy Land
from the hands of the impious," even goes so far as to set a date and place for an embarking of the
forces: Sicily, 1 June 1217.
6 The reality of Jewish conversion to Christianity in the years just before Lateran IV is a historical
issue quite separate from the concern formalized here, one about which canon 70 provides no conclu
sive evidence. There is, it seems, very little evidence for anything other than occasional conversions in
the mid and late twelfth century. In England at least seven Jewish communities were attacked and
suffered massacres in 1189/90, but the sources say next to nothing about concomitant forced conver
sions: see R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March 1190, rev. ed. (York,
1996); and Joe Hillaby, "Jewish Colonization in the Twelfth Century," in The Jews in Medieval Britain:
Historical, Literary, and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Patricia Skinner (Woodbridge, Eng., 2003),
pp. 29-32. Susan L. Einbinder, Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France
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562 Concern about Judaizing
The authors of canon 70 at Lateran IV express concern less about Jews t
about perceived Jewishness. Granted, this canon is preceded in the record
council's statements by three canons regulating the conduct of Jews, not co
from Judaism, but there is no apparent conceptual link between canons 6
and canon 70: Jews are restricted on their own account, not because they
thought to encourage Judaizing among new converts to Christianity. And,
canon 70 depends, conceptually, on its objects having once been Jewish, a
as on the continued attraction of Jewishness to recent converts, it does not dep
on the continued existence of Jews. The locus of concern in this case is the
tian, who in one way or another is thought of as being in danger of beco
not a Jew, but simply Jewish.7 It is the threat of contamination or corrup
Christianity, more than conversion away from it, that is the source of the coun
concern about Judaizing: "For, in keeping remnants of their former rite, they
the decorum of the christian religion by such a mixing."8
(Princeton, N.J., 2002), introduction and chapter 1, suggests that Jewish martyrological poetry
second half of the twelfth century functions, in part, as a response to contemporary conversion
in France, but she does not argue that there were, in fact, significant numbers of conversions.
Haverkamp, "Baptized Jews in German Lands during the Twelfth Century," in Jews and Chri
Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Michael A. Signer and John Van Engen, Notre Dame Conferen
Medieval Studies 10 (Notre Dame, Ind., 2001), pp. 255-310, at pp. 267-83, reviews eviden
several isolated cases of conversion in Germany in the second half of the twelfth century. T
untary conversions associated with violence against Jews in 1096 were probably too transito
in any case, much too early to explain the concern expressed at Lateran IV: see Robert
European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, Calif., 1987), pp. 99-105; Haverkamp, "B
Jews," pp. 257-67; and Jeremy Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and J
Memories of the First Crusade (Philadelphia, 2004), esp. pp. 4-5, 58, and 66-67. It is only
decades after Lateran IV that there is some evidence for an increase in conversions from Jud
Christianity, at least in England and France. Robert C. Stacey, "The Conversion of Jews to Chris
in Thirteenth-Century England," Speculum 67 (1992), 263-83, shows the limited success thro
1240s and 1250s of a royally sponsored program of conversion initiated in the early 123
increased conversion in France in the later decades of the thirteenth century, see William
Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philad
1989), pp. 149-54. Joseph Shatzmiller, "Jewish Converts to Christianity in Medieval Euro
1500," in Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period, ed. Michael Goodich, Sophia M
and Sylvia Schein (New York, 1995), pp. 297-318, cites multiple cases of "private convers
opposed to forced conversion) across western Europe and suggests a conversion rate of 5 pe
thirteenth-century England.
7 The idea that Jewishness, independent of Judaism or Jews, poses a threat to Christianity is
in at least two other admonitions about Judaizing, which are, in other respects, thoroughly dis
to canon 70 and to each other. Alan of Lille, writing perhaps near the end of the twelfth centu
untitled sermon on the Song of Songs 3.7-8, condemns priests who traffic in spiritual goods, de
them as "Judaizers": "lam non solus ludas vendit Christum, sed omnes iudaizantes eum ex
vendendum ..." (Marie-Th?r?se d'Alverny, ed., Alain de Lille: Textes in?dits, Etudes de Philo
M?di?vale 52 [Paris, 1965], p. 285). A Master Serlo, writing after 1234 in his Summa de penit
says that Christians are to avoid social communication with "Saracens," just as they avoid s
lations with Jews, "because they [the 'Saracens'] still Judaize" (Joseph Goering, "The Sum
penitentia of Magister Serlo," Mediaeval Studies 38 [1976], 53; I thank Joseph Goering for b
this passage to my attention).
8 Tanner, ed., Decrees, 1:267: "... cum prioris ritus reliquias retinentes, christianae religio
corem tali commixtione confundant. "
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Concern about Judaizing 563
2. CONCERNS ABOUT JUDAIZING IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY:
IDEOLOGICAL JEWISHNESS
Canon 70 of Lateran IV speaks of "certain people" who keep "remnant
their former rite." That concern with a practical Jewishness among Chris
typifies-in the early thirteenth century, as in other times-the kind of conc
about Judaizing inspired by recent conversions from Judaism to Christianity
for those intellectuals in the twelfth and early thirteenth century who believed
necessary to regulate perceived tendencies toward Jewishness on an individ
basis among Christians who had, in a formal sense, always been Christians, J
ishness was more often conceived of as a state of mind than a state of pract
engagement. And by that I mean a religious state defined more by adherenc
certain ideas than by adherence to a set of observances informed by those id
There was, between the late eleventh century and the early thirteenth cent
an extraordinary growth of Christian anti-Jewish polemical literature.9 It has of
been suggested that the genre, as a whole, is directed, more often than not, towa
Christian audiences, that most such works are rendered more comprehensibl
we see their main objective as to influence the ideas and attitudes of Christ
to define Christianity by contrast with Judaism (in some form imagined by
author or inherited from predecessors in the genre) and, in doing so, to strength
attachment to traditional Christian teachings by bolstering the conviction t
Jewish beliefs are erroneous.10 And it is certainly evident that some of the m
authors writing treatises and dialogues "against the Jews" in this period w
motivated primarily by concerns about Judaizing Christians-more precisely
concern about the perceived spread of ideological (but not practical) Jewish
among Christians. Some of the polemicists say as much.
Odo of Tournai (d. 1113), for example, introduces his Disputation again
9 At last count, I have found twenty-seven contra Iudaeos treatises written in Latin in western Eu
between c. 1070 and 1215. Compare this figure with the approximately sixteen patristic treat
written in Greek and Latin, over a much wider geographic range, between 140 and 440. Se
Murphy, "Judaism in the Thought of Peter Abelard" (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University,
pp. 1-5. These figures are based, in part, on sources reported in Heinz Schreckenberg, Die christlic
Adversus-Judaeos-Texte (11.-13. Jh.): Mit einer Ikonographie des Judenthemas bis zum 4. Lat
konzil, Europ?ische Hochschulschriften 23/335 (Frankfurt am Main, 1988); Heinz Schreckenber
christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte und ihr literarisches und historisches Umfeld (l.-ll. Jh.), 3rd
Europ?ische Hochschulschriften 23/172 (Frankfurt am Main, 1995); and Samuel Krauss and W
Horbury, The Jewish-Christian Controversy: From the Earliest Times to 1789, 1: History, Text
Studien zum antiken Judentum 56 (T?bingen, 1995).
10 On this point see, for example, the following (in order of publication): Bernhard Blumenk
and Jean Ch?tillon, "De la pol?mique antijuive ? la cat?ch?se chr?tienne: L'objet, le contenu et
sources d'une anonyme Altercado Synagogae et Ecclesiae du Xlle si?cle," Recherches de th?
ancienne et m?di?vale 23 (1956), 40-60; David Berger, "Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Chr
Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages," American Historical Review 91(1
576-91; Gavin I. Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, Calif., 1990), pp.
and 130-33; and Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, Calif., 1993), pp
201, at p. 175 (originally published as "Changes in the Patterns of Christian Anti-Jewish Polem
the Twelfth Century" [Hebrew], Zion 33 [1968], 125-44). Berger's demonstration that Chr
polemical works of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries "were not rooted in a new or conti
missionary impulse" (p. 578) is thorough and still compelling.
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564 Concern about Judaizing
Jew Named Leo, concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God wi
desire to "instruct a faithful monk." He answers the request of Acar
Femy, for a written summary of a sermon defending the necessity
nation, the memory of which was in danger of being overwhelmed b
opinions" in the mind of his recipient.1' Odo's prologue nowhere exp
ulates a concern with ideological Jewishness among Christians; such
at most, suggested, by the "flood of opinions" that unsettled at leas
beliefs about the doctrine of the Incarnation. But the conclusion to
Disputation, which defends the Incarnation and Passion of Christ as
satisfaction for human sin, as well as the suitability of divine inca
woman, takes a very different turn. The monk, Acard, and the Jew,
their real or imagined status, are still there, but they are joined by
indeterminate number of "Catholics" whose attachment to ideas as
the "Jew" provided the original impulse for the argument behind
"Brother Acard, I gave these reasoned arguments to the Jew concerning
of Christ, because certain Catholics who joined in on the part of the
me to dispute more subtly."'12 That Odo's polemic originated in a c
possible ideological Jewishness among Christians could hardly be clea
Guibert of Nogent, to take another example, explicitly links his tr
anti-Jewish polemic, Against a Judaizer and the Jews, to the threat
Jewishness.'3 The treatise was written, Guibert explains in his Monod
"almost four years earlier against the count of Soissons, who was a J
a heretic."'14 And then, in a later section of the Monodiae devoted
Guibert added: "He regarded the false beliefs of Jews and heretics so
he personally uttered blasphemies against the Savior, something the
fear of the faithful never dared to do."15 That the count's alleged Je
matter of belief, not overt practice, is clear from the first chapter
11 PL 160:1103A. There is an English translation in Odo of Tournai, "On Origin
Disputation with the Jew, Leo, concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God, "
Resnick (Philadelphia, 1994), p. 85. Resnick (p. 29) suggests a date of 1105 or 1106
Odo was bishop of Cambrai from 1105 to 1113.
12 PL 160:1112C: "Has, frater, Acarde, Judaeo reddidi radones de adventu Christi,
quaedam subtilius disputare quibusdam Catholicis qui intererant pro Judaei part
translations of Resnick, p. 97, and Berger, "Mission," p. 587. Berger, in his analysis of w
describes as a "fascinating sentence," reads the reported disputation as a kind of "in
tainment," in which some Christians in the audience were "prepared to challenge th
the Christian protagonist" as "advocates of an explanation of the incarnation tha
Odo's." Berger's suggestions that Odo experiences the dispute as a kind of "entertain
the "certain Catholics" in question differ from Odo simply in their explanations of
seem to me unjustified by the evidence. The Catholics are clearly said to have "joine
of the Jew," which would mean that they doubted the necessity and suitability of the In
13 Guibert of Nogent, Tractatus de Incarnatione contra Iudaeos, PL 156:489-528
treatise, see Jan M. Ziolkowski, "Put in No-Man's-Land: Guibert of Nogent's Accusa
Judaizing and Jew-Supporting Christian," in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Centu
Signer and Van Engen, pp. 110-22; and Jay Rubenstein, Guibert of Nogent: Portrai
Mind (New York, 2002), pp. 116-24.
14 A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent 2.5, trans. Paul J. Arc
versity Park, Pa., 1996), p. 113; Guibert of Nogent, De vita sua, sive Monodiae, ed. and
Ren? Labande, Les Classiques de l'Histoire de France au Moyen ?ge 34 (Paris, 1981
15 Memoirs of Guibert, p. 194.
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Concern about Judaizing 565
treatise against him, where, in an account of his reasons for writing, Guibert ma
the count's steady, ostensibly devout outward observance of Christianity on
the most damning marks against him.16
Like anti-Jewish polemic, biblical commentary was produced on an unpre
dentedly large scale in monastic intellectual environments of the twelfth cent
There are also essential links between these two types of literary production
cluding the early and constant role of biblical interpretation (and theories o
lical interpretation) in the refutation of Jewish beliefs and the parallel reinf
ment of Christian ones. Much of the contra Iudaeos literature, early and late
simply biblical interpretation with an apologetic and polemical purpose
those familiar with the genre, this hardly needs stating.17 And twelfth-cen
biblical commentary, like anti-Jewish polemic, is punctuated by surface erup
of concern about Judaizing. In exegetical traditions in which the literal sense itsel
is often defined and dismissed as "Jewish," the threat of ideological Jewishne
necessarily near at hand.
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) provides a lesser-known illustration of t
pattern in his commentary on the Song of Songs, a series of eighty-six serm
written probably over the period 1135-53.18 Having quickly summarized th
eral sense of "Return, my beloved, like a roe or a fawn" (Song of Songs 2.1
Sermon 73 (c. 1146?), Bernard refers to what he has just finished as "the par
the Jews" and promises his readers that he will now examine the "inner m
ing" of the verse: "This is my part, as I believe in Christ." The implication
course, is that those who are satisfied with the literal sense do not. And fr
Bernard's pithy contrast between "the part of the Jews" and the part of the belie
in Christ arises an excursus (outweighing, in fact, his treatment of the literal sen
by more than two to one) on the intellectual and moral failings associated
"Jewish literalism," the "blindness of the synagogue," and on the unhappin
and death such attention to the letter carries with it.19 Bernard, like so many oth
exegetes of the spiritual sense polemicizing against what they think is undu
tention to the literal sense of the Bible, cites the authority of Paul-2 Corinth
3.6: "For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life"-to silence advocates of t
16 Guibert of Nogent, Tractatus de Incarnatione contra ludaeos, PL 156:489C-490C.
17 The point is made by, among others, Gilbert Dahan, Les intellectuels chr?tiens et les jui
moyen ?ge (Paris, 1990), pp. 386-413; and Funkenstein, Perceptions, p. 173.
18 Sermones super C?ntica canticorum 36-86, in Sancti Bernardi Opera, 2, ed. J. Leclercq and H.
Roch?is (Rome, 1958); trans, by Kilian Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds in Bernard of Clairvau
the Song of Songs, Cistercian Fathers Series 4, 7, 31, and 40 (Spencer, Mass., and Kalamazoo, M
1971-80). On the composition of the sermons, see Jean Leclercq, "The Making of a Masterpiece
On the Song of Songs, 4:ix-xxiv.
19 As an anonymous reader for Speculum rightly noted, Bernard would be hard-pressed to f
single commentator?ancient or medieval, Jewish or Christian?on the Song of Songs who is sat
with the literal sense. On the history of Christian commentary, see Ann W. Astell, The Song of So
in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), and E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Son
Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990); for an instructive sampling of the sou
see The Song of Songs: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, ed. and t
Richard A. Norris (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2003).
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566 Concern about Judaizing
literal sense.20 Though Bernard often interrupts his long commentary on
of Songs for a timely attack on a contemporary or contemporary set of
do not know who, if anyone, is the object of his attack here. I suspect t
is no particular target-this section of the sermon reads like a general
and that Bernard is simply airing, briefly and harshly, the sentiment,
others, that the literal sense is receiving entirely the wrong sort of attention
contemporary Christian exegetes.21
Perceived Jewishness among Christians was, I think, one of the great co
concerns of the twelfth century. It was, to be more precise, like all of th
century's prevailing ideological bugbears, a great concern of twelfth-cen
tellectuals. We can see it emerge in twelfth-century anti-Jewish polemi
lical commentary; it is evident, too-as I will demonstrate in the follow
tions-in the theological treatises produced by academic intellectuals. But
moving to that complex body of material, it seems worth rememberin
speak of concern about Judaizing among twelfth-century intellectuals is
the perspective of the suspicious, the accusatory-those, as I have said,
lieved some regulation was in order; for such intellectuals, it was a conce
Jewishness. For Christian intellectuals constrained by the suspicions or ac
of others, however, investigations into, for example, the significance of the
sense or the continuation of Levitical observances in Christianity were
manifestations of concern with an authentic understanding of their own
3. A TWELFTH-CENTURY PROFUSION
OF ACADEMIC TREATISES ON THE LAW
If sustained attention to the literal sense of the Bible was itself enough
cases, to provoke concerns about Judaizing-concerns, that is, about rea
Bible in what critics of the literal sense thought of as a distinctively "
way-one might expect to see elevated concern when attention to the lite
invites a discussion of possible practical consequences: "Every male amo
shall be circumcised" (Genesis 17.10), for example, or "Remember the S
day, and keep it holy" (Exodus 20.8). And the potential for fostering id
20 Sermon 73, Sancti Bernardi Opera, 2:233-39, at p. 234; On the Song of Songs, 4
pp. 76-77. For a longer analysis of the sermon, in the context of Bernard's other writings ab
and Judaism, see Murphy, "Judaism," pp. 312-13.
21 In an example made famous by Beryl Smalley, Richard of St. Victor's De Emanuele d
opposition to Adam of St. Victor's literal commentary on the Immanuel prophecy in Isa
Richard, like Bernard, there is a Judaizing tendency afoot; for Richard, unlike Bernard
exegesis has an individual face. See Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages
(Oxford, 1952), pp. 110-11 and 168-72. In her articles on Ralph of Flaix, Smalley show
monastic commentator's mid-twelfth-century commentary on Leviticus, a "standard scho
the thirteenth century, consistently devalues the Law and condemns, with few exceptions, r
Law according to the literal sense?all this in order "to dissuade his brethren at St. Ge
overrating Jewish arguments in favour of the permanence of the whole Mosaic Law." See Bery
"William of Auvergne, John of la Rochelle, and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law," in
Aquinas, 1274-1974: Commemorative Studies, 2 (Toronto, 1974), pp. 11-71, at pp.
Smalley, "Ralph of Flaix on Leviticus," Recherches de th?ologie ancienne et m?di?vale 35
82. On opposition to the literal sense in the context of anti-Jewish polemic, see Dahan, Les in
pp. 475-87.
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Concern about Judaizing 567
Jewishness in this respect is found not only in biblical commentary but also
Christian theory (or "theology" as Peter Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers began
call it in the 1130s).
Theoretical investigation into the nature of Christianity was, by the mid-twelfth
century, the dominant form of intellectual endeavor among the academic elit
The century between c. 1130 and c. 1230 is the great opening age of books o
quaestiones, of sententiae, of summae, of-to put it descriptively-attempts t
write systematic, comprehensive, sometimes innovative theoretical analyses
Christian belief and practice. The theorizing impulse among twelfth-century
ademics led very frequently to reconsiderations of the theoretical relationship
tween Judaism and Christianity, of the role, even in Christianity, of beliefs a
observances interpreted by some as distinctively "Jewish."
Lateran IV may have railed (at the beginning of the thirteenth century) agai
observance by new Christians of "their old rite"; Bernard of Clairvaux may h
decried (at the middle of the twelfth century) a "Jewish" reading of the Bible;
Odo of Tournai may have worried (at the start of the twelfth century) about
attraction felt by "Catholics" toward "the part of the Jew." But the thorou
astute investigator of the nature of Christianity, especially when investigating
cording to methods informed by historical or sacramental approaches, as so
influential theorists of Christianity did, was going to have to assess those rit
that reading, and those views. This means that the inaugural age of the summ
also an age in which theoretical treatments of circumcision and the "Old Law
abound.22
Numerous academic intellectuals-including some of the best known, some of
the less known, and some who remain anonymous-wrote about circumcision
and the Law in the period 1130-1230.23 Their treatment of the issues differs
markedly in density of detail, in comprehensiveness, and, so, in length: in some
cases the relevant issues are covered in independent quaestiones and sententiae;
in others they are developed systematically in chapters and sections of summae;
in several cases they are the subject of independent treatises.24 There were, no
doubt, many motives for these inquiries into the place of circumcision and the
Law in Christianity. It is clear that some academics sought simply to understand
the historical and theoretical relationship between Judaism and Christianity or, as
they would put it, between the "Old Law" (or "Testament" or "Dispensation")
and the "New": Peter Abelard, writing in the 1130s, is an exemplary case in point.
But, as I will argue here, one of the most common motives, across this same
22 For an overview of Christian ideas about circumcision and the Law in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, see Artur Michael Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der Fr?hscholastik, 3/1 (Regensburg, 1954),
pp. 19-108; and Dahan, Les intellectuels, pp. 559-62.
23 Up to this point, I have examined the works of seventeen authors writing on the subject between
1130 and 1230, twelve of whom are discussed in this paper. (I refer, here, to theological treatises on
circumcision and the Law, not the separate genre of explicitly polemical, twelfth-century contra
Iudaeos works discussed briefly in Section 2, above.)
24 This description of textual forms is not meant to describe a strict pattern of chronological devel
opment: stand-alone treatises are sometimes found early in the twelfth century (for example, those of
Hugh of St. Victor), while disconnected quaestiones are found late (for example, those of Stephen
Langton). For convenience, I will use the term "treatise" in what follows to describe any distinct,
purposeful discussion of circumcision and the Law, whatever its original form.
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568 Concern about Judaizing
century, for writing a treatise on the Law was concern about the spread of
izing ideas in academic circles. Treatises of this sort, though their form is th
ical, functioned primarily as anti-Judaizing polemics-that is, polemics aga
Christians whose ideas were thought to be excessively Jewish. This concern
explicit in several treatises; it is implied in many others. In some cases, co
about Judaizing is clearly a response to earlier theological efforts to unders
the relationship between old and new, efforts, like Abelard's, that are mark
a kind of openness in their inquiry. But it seems equally a response to a con
inquiring hum in the classrooms, one that posed, in various forms, this ques
Is it not, in fact, the case that Christianity, despite what Christ himself ta
(Matthew 5.17), has abolished the Law rather than fulfilled it?
Because of the number and variety of theoretical writings on circumcision
the Law-and the fact that the ideas they convey cannot be consistently corr
to their textual form or chronological order-I have found it helpful to divid
treatises that I consider here into three ideological categories. Treatises in the fir
category have a great deal to say on circumcision and the Law; their assessm
of the sacraments and precepts of the Law are highly positive, even when j
in comparison with the sacraments and precepts of the "New Law"; and the
open to the possibility that nonmoral elements of the Law, even interpret
cording to the letter, are and ought to be retained in Christianity.25 Treatises in
second category are brief to the point of suggesting the issues involved are
worth considering; their assessments of the sacraments and precepts of the
inasmuch as they cover those subjects, are negative in comparison with tho
the New Law; and they do not consider the possibility of continued observ
of the letter of the Law. Treatises in the third category are again expansive o
issues. They emphasize, however, the inadequacies of the Law, and they insi
the total inadmissibility in Christianity of any literal observance of the non
elements of the Law. They are, moreover, sometimes explicit in their condemnat
of Judaizing.
I am well aware that there are almost always interpretive dangers in categorizi
historical evidence in this way, and so I provide two caveats. First, these are s
hermeneutic categories-if, at some point, they cease to clarify our understa
of the historical evidence, they ought to be discarded. As categories, they do
strictly speaking, represent past reality, but, given the conflictual, precise
highly reflective nature of twelfth-century theological discourse, I am certain th
most, if not all, of the authors considered here would acknowledge the diff
ideas and approaches that I represent through these categories. Second, I d
mean to suggest that these categories, as listed here, represent a chronolog
25 The distinctions?circumcision and the Law, sacrament and precept, moral and nonmora
mands?used here to describe and compare the three categories are derived from the language
in the treatises themselves. So they reflect, in a summary and general form, ways in which twelft
thirteenth-century Christian academics conceptualized and analyzed the commands recorded
Pentateuch. Of the three distinctions, probably the most constant and conceptually central acr
treatises I have studied is the distinction between moral and nonmoral commands (between m
and legalialcaeremonaliaifiguralia!ritualiaicarnalia). (Hugh of St. Victor is, I think, unique in descri
the same distinction in terms of immobilia and mobilia. ) Christian treatments of the Law are m
distinguished by their evaluation of nonmoral commands, before, during, and after the adv
Christianity.
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Concern about Judaizing 569
progression in writings on circumcision and the Law. We see, instead, an on
tension between open inquiry and polemical response among academic inte
tuals in the period c. 1130-c. 1230.
4. INQUIRY, INDIFFERENCE, AND CONCERN, C. 1130-c. 1160
Inquiry
Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142) exemplifies his generation's renewed interest in
understanding the status of the Law across the ages, and his writings on circum
cision and the Law exemplify treatises of the first category. His works include a
long sermon on the subject, Sermon 3, "On the Circumcision of the Lord," as
well as ten theological quaestiones on the status of the Law, including five on
circumcision, in his later Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.26
The questions do not arise in Abelard's Theologia (an attempt, in at least three
distinct versions, to provide a systematic study of Christian doctrine), as questions
of this sort did in the systematic doctrinal works of other twelfth-century academ
ics, but only because of the structural limits he imposed on that work, clearly not
because of a lack of interest.
Sermon 3 perfectly captures Abelard's own ambivalence about what Christians
ought to believe about the present status of the Law. In doing so, it neatly reflects
the divergent opinions of unnamed others who, Abelard wanted to show, err too
much on one side or the other. After two preliminary questions-Why was cir
cumcision instituted? Why was it replaced by baptism?-Abelard asks the final
and most important question in the sermon: "Why does the Lord, when the Law
is coming to an end and the gospel beginning, accept the very observances of the
Law which he completed, as if exhorting us by his example, so that beginning
with the Law we may be perfected in the gospel and not pass over to the new
sacraments in such a way that we abandon the old? "27 The third question dem
onstrates, in the very asking, why Abelard thought an inquiry into the "sacra
ment" of circumcision is at the heart of Christian self-understanding. It shows
also, in the way it is phrased ("as if exhorting us by his example"), that a question
about circumcision-more broadly about Christ's example in observing the man
dates of the Law-naturally opens an investigation into the appropriateness of
Christian observance of the Law. And, for Abelard, the question is as relevant for
theorists of Christianity in the twelfth century as it was in the first.
26 Peter Abelard, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, ed. Eligius M. Buytaert, CCCM 11
(Turnhout, 1969); Sermon 3, PL 178:398-409. For a full translation of the sermon and the ten ques
tions in the Romans commentary, see the appendix in Murphy, "Judaism"; these and related works
by Abelard are thoroughly analyzed in chapters 5 and 6. A summary of Abelard's ideas about the Law
is found in Sean Eisen Murphy, "The Letter of the Law: Abelard, Moses, and the Problem with Being
a Eunuch," Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004), 179-83. For a study of Abelard's Sermon 5, "On
the Purification of Saint Mary" (PL 178:417-25), which includes a Paul-inspired (Abelard is com
menting on Gal. 4.3-7) critique of the "literal sense," in its relation to Abelard's third sermon and
Romans commentary, see Murphy, "Judaism," pp. 237-62.
27 Sermon 3, PL 178:405A: "Superest autem, ut tertiae respondentes, praesentem operam consum
memus, cur videlicet Dominus legem finiens, et Evangelium inchoans, ipsa etiam quae finivit legalia
suscepit, quasi nos suo adhortans exemplo ut a lege incipientes, in Evangelio consummemur, nee sic
ad nova transeamus sacramenta, ut derelinquamus antiqua." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 421.
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570 Concern about Judaizing
If Christ himself observed circumcision and the feast of Passover, why sho
the Christians who claim to follow him do the same? "And indeed, as S
says, 'The eyes of a wise man are in his head.' As if expounding this, the
[John] says, 'He who says he remains in Christ ought also to walk ju
walked.' Therefore, just as the Lord, who says, 'I came not to destroy th
but to fulfill it,' accepted baptism after circumcision and after the sacrifi
old Pasch celebrated the new, so it is fitting, you migbt say, that we, fol
his footsteps, not stray from them at all."28 Abelard expected this question t
in the minds of his listeners or his readers. His sermon suggests that it
infrequently asked, that there was some interest and concern among learn
tians about whether Christianity had somehow failed to follow the ves
Christ.29
Abelard argues that the practice of circumcision is one case, among many, in
which it is not fitting to follow in Christ's footsteps. It would be an error, he says,
for Christians now to continue to observe the practice of circumcision because the
circumstances that made it reasonable for Christ to accept circumcision no longer
exist.30 But Abelard's aim is more interesting than the simple correction of an
erroneous opinion. He considers the opinion because he thinks it is not an error
to ask again whether past observances are to be retained, rejected, or reestablished.
Some of the things Jesus and the apostles did in observance of the Law are to be
imitated; some are to be avoided; some are to be avoided at one time but not
another; and some are to be observed in a different way from how they originally
were observed.31 For Abelard, discussion of Christian observance of practices as
sociated with the Law is justified and guided by the following principle: "Indeed,
there are many things which according to the suitability of the time are approved
at one time and disapproved at another, they are even done by the same persons
earlier and later. Indeed, every place and time has its own reasons, according to
which it is fitting that in them the same thing be done at one time and avoided at
another. "32 Moral commands, Abelard argues elsewhere, are binding in every time
and place, but the many nonmoral commands of the Law have been subject to
review. "So in order to avoid scandalizing or driving away the peoples, it is clear
that certain observances of the Law are now guarded against by us, such as cir
28 PL 178:405A-B: "Et quippe, ut Salomon ait: O culi sapientis in capite ejus [Eccles. 2.14]. Quod
quasi exponens Apostolus: Qui dicit se in Christo, inquit, manere, d?bet sicut Ule ambulavit et ipse
ambulare [1 John 2.6]. Sicut ergo Dominus, qui ait: Non veni solvere legem, sed adimplere [Matt.
5.17], post circumcisionem suscepit baptismum, post veteris Paschae sacrificium celebravit novum, ita
nos ejus vestigia sequentes, ab his minime, inquies, convenit declinare." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism,"
p. 421.
29 Heloise, for one, shows an interest in the issue. In a series of biblical and theological questions,
she asked Abelard for his interpretation of Matt. 5.17: Problemata Heloissae, Problem 15, PL
178:702D-703C.
30 PL 178:405B-406C; Murphy, "Judaism," pp. 422-23.
31 See, for example, Sermon 3, PL 178:406B: "Sunt et alia nonnulla, quae et Dominum egisse memi
nimus, et ea tarnen salubriter declinamus omnino, vel alio tempore et alio modo convenienter cele
bramus." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 423.
32 Sermon 3, PL 178:406C-D: "Multa quippe sunt, quae secundum temporis opportunitatem alio
tempore sunt probanda, et alio improbanda, etsi ab eisdem prius et postmodum gerantur personis.
Habent quippe in omnibus loca et t?mpora suas radones, secundum quas in eis eadem modo fieri,
modo vitari convenit." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 424.
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Concern about Judaizing 571
cumcision and observance of the sabbath or the holy days, and the rite of sacrific
as well as abstinence from certain foods; but that in which the apostles or
fathers found no scandal, or rather in which they perceived something usefu
beautiful, they did not shrink from retaining."33 Abelard follows with mult
examples, including the lighting of candles, dedication of churches, grades of
priesthood, sacred vestments, anointing, and periods of fast.
And, Abelard seems to suggest, they still are subject to review: "Since, therefore
we keep some things from antiquity and reject others, the reasons or advant
must be weighed with respect to each individual thing."34 If, all things considered
a practice is fitting for a given time and place, it ought to be retained; if not
should be rejected-for that time and place, but still not for every time and p
That is why Abelard thinks it reasonable that the question of Christian cir
cision should be raised again in the twelfth as it was in the first century; tha
precisely what he is doing in this sermon.
And so from the error of those who would mistakenly, though with good
tentions, advocate Christian observance of circumcision and freely admit oth
observances of the Law, Abelard passes to the other extreme: "But some, be
less careful, judge from this [the suspension of certain ancient practices] tha
erything [of ancient practice] ought now to be rejected, because they were
mations of the truth that followed and are now completed through Christ."3
the basis of principles already enunciated-that appropriateness of a practic
relative to circumstances, so that each practice must be judged according to
and place-indiscriminate rejection of the Law is, to Abelard's mind, clearly
error. Even granting the premise of the "less careful"-as Abelard is certain
ready to do-the argument does not follow. That it cannot follow is shown,
elard thinks, by the very tradition of Christian practice: marriage, for example, a
well as the anointing of kings and priests, the sacrifice of bread and wine, and
consecration of altars and dedication of churches. "But because no one amon
the faithful or the discerning approves of this [i.e., rejection of these practices],
is evident that there are some reasons why we retain from the old testament som
signs of things just as we retain all the words."36 In the end, it is the unity of th
two "testaments" that Abelard will emphasize in his defense of continuing o
ness to the literal observance of (some) nonmoral commands of the Law. "W
[is it] so astonishing that we accept some of its sacraments even after the com
tion of the things [it describes], when the things as much as the words which
33 Sermon 3, PL 178:406D: "Adeo pro scandalis vel repulsione gentium vitandis, quaedam nun
nobis legitima caveri manifestum est, utpote circumcisionem et Sabbati seu festorum observationes
sacrificiorum ritum, sive quorumdam abstinentiam ciborum; quod in quibus apostoli vel sancti P
nullum praesenserunt scandalum, imo aliquid utilitatis vel decoris intellexerunt, ea reti?ere non ab
ruerunt." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 424.
34 Sermon 3, PL 178:407B: "Cum igitur aliqua ex antiquitate retineamus, aliqua respuamus, ca
vel opportunitates pensandae sunt in singulis." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 425.
35 Sermon 3, PL 178:407B-C: "Quod quidam minus attendentes, inde omnia jam respuenda
cant, quia figurae fuerunt subsecutae veritatis, et per Christum jam completae." Trans. Murphy
daism," p. 425.
36 Sermon 3, PL 178:407C-D: "Quod quia nemo fidelium vel discretorum approbat, constat aliquas
esse radones, cur ex Veteri Testamento nonnulla in rerum signis sicut in verbis omnia retinemus."
Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 425.
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572 Concern about Judaizing
old testament, of which we do not presume to reject a single word, foretol
now fulfilled. Indeed, the greater is the agreement of the old and new testa
and the more the latter is confirmed by the former, the more not only the
but the things themselves are seen to be conjoined."37
In Abelard's later Romans Commentary, a long quaestio following hi
mentary on Romans 7.13 ("Was that then which was good made death unto
provides further justification for this conclusion in Sermon 3 that Christians ou
to retain some of the "sacraments" of the "old testament." To someone who
ask (after reading Romans 7.1-13), "how the command of the Law or t
itself is called good or given for the sake of life, or why it was even given by G
Abelard replies that the Law "is entirely good because all of its precepts,
said, are just, if not complete, even according to the letter, and everythin
commands has rational explanations, even if we do not know them."38 It
fundamental justness and rationality of every precept of the Law that legi
the ongoing judgment of the admissibility of any precept of the Law in th
of changing circumstances.
This basic principle, enunciated in Sermon 3 with respect to the practic
circumcision and other observances of the Law, is repeated in yet another q
from Abelard's Romans Commentary-in this case, with respect to dietary
strictions. "But if we should carefully discuss those [teachings] which see
trary in the apostles or apostolic men, we will find these and other things
forbidden at one time and allowed at another according to the time and p
and sometimes in some of the things prohibited it is provided more for
spectability of life than from the religious practice of the faith."39
Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141), one of Abelard's more famous contempo
at Paris, shows, despite frequent differences of opinion on particular poi
fundamentally similar interest in and openness to the role of the Law in h
theoretical accounts of Christianity. Hugh wrote extensively on circumcisi
the Law: in two stand-alone treatises-Institutiones in decalogum legis dom
and Dialogus de sacramentis legis naturalis et scriptae-and, more significa
in his major attempt at an ordered, comprehensive, but summary, treatme
37 Sermon 3, PL 178:407D-408A: "Quid ita mirum, cum tarn rebus quam verbis ea qua
completa sunt Vetus Testamentum praenuntiet, nonnulla ejus sacramenta post rerum etiam
tionem suscipiamus, cujus nulla respuere verba praesumimus? Tanto quippe major est conco
teris et Novi Testamenti, et hoc ex illo magis confirmatur, quanto non solum verbis, verum etiam
ipsis conjuncta videntur." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 426.
38 Abelard, Commentaria 3, pp. 199-200: "Forte quaerat aliquis quomodo mandatum legis s
lex bonum dicatur uel ad uitam datum, uel quare etiam a Deo datum, si saluare obedien
poterat??Ad quod respondemus legem in hoc esse datam ad uitam, ut etiam populo Dei uitae a
meritum initiaret, non perficeret; et ideo bona tantummodo esse quia omnia eius, ut dictum e
sunt praecepta etiam secundum litteram, si non perfecta, et causas habent rationales quaecumque
praecipit, etiamsi eas ignoremus." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 475. Note, too, this passage
Abelard's commentary on Rom. 7.7: "Vnde legem penitus bonam esse conuincit, quia quidqui
est bonum est, siue in docendo scilicet siue in prohibendo" (Commentaria 3, p. 197; trans. M
"Judaism," p. 474).
39 Abelard, Commentaria 4, p. 310: "Sed si haec in apostolis et apostolicis uiris, quae co
uidentur, diligenter in ipsa radicis intentione discutiamus, reperiemus haec et alia pro tempore e
modo prohibenda esse, modo concedenda; et nonnunquam in aliquibus prohibendis magis de ho
uitae quam de religione fidei prouisum esse." Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 484.
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Concern about Judaizing 573
Christian doctrine into which those shorter, earlier treatises were almost f
incorporated, the De sacramentis Christianae fidei.40
Hugh's theoretical writings about the relation of Judaism to Christianity o
he would put it, about the role of the "precepts, sacraments, and promises" o
"written Law" in the history of God's "restoration" of humankind are, if
thing, more involved than those of Abelard.4' To put it as simply as possible
Law has an essential role in Hugh's story of the progress of revelation and
vation. The history of salvation cannot be told without an account of Juda
including especially the Law; the very sources on which Hugh depends for
history make that the case. At the very least, he would think Christianity in
prehensible apart from Judaism. Like a telescope, each section in his history
salvation is drawn out of the one that precedes it; without the preceding sec
the full extension cannot be attained. For the purposes of this paper, howev
want to stress not simply the historical importance Judaism has for Christi
in Hugh's thought but the extent to which he believed the precepts of the Law ar
retained intact in Christianity.
Hugh distinguishes the "movable" from the "immovable" precepts of the L
"Movable are those which from dispensation are ordained for the time. Im
able are those which come from nature and are either so evil that at no tim
they be performed without blame or so good that at no time can they be dismiss
without blame."42 The "immovable precepts" of the Law are-he was convinc
fully incorporated in the teaching of Christianity. For Hugh, this means tha
Gospel acquires from the Law both moral precepts, which teach and regulate
works, and precepts of faith, which teach about the nature of God and the w
in which he ought to be served and worshipped. Abelard, too, thought tha
"moral precepts," all commands of the Law governing love of neighbor and
of God, became part of Christian moral teaching.
And just as Abelard thought it worth demonstrating that many of the nonmora
precepts of the Law have been incorporated into Christianity, making many o
institutions and observances a mirror of ancient Jewish ones, Hugh emphas
the importance of the Law's "movable precepts" in the practice of Christian
"Of the precepts which were superadded and were movable certain ones even
in time of grace have been retained for exercise, for example, the observan
fasts. And certain others which were instituted in earlier times have, however, b
reserved providentially for the instruction of the present, and those espe
which look to the exercise of spiritual zeal are reserved in a time of grace, t
40 Institutiones, PL 176:9-18; Dialogus, PL 176:17-42; De sacramentis Christianae fide
176:173-618. For a translation of the last work see Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of
Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferrari, Medieval Academy of America Publication 58 (Cambr
Mass., 1951).
41 For a thorough treatment of Hugh's theory of Judaism, including a detailed comparison of Hu
ideas to those of Abelard, see Murphy, "Judaism," pp. 329-92. For a study focused primar
practical and exegetical aspects of Hugh's relation to Judaism, see Rebecca Moore, Jews and Christ
in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St. Victor, South Florida Studies in the History of Judais
(Atlanta, Ga., 1998). The rest of this section on Hugh is quoted or otherwise adapted from Mu
"Judaism," pp. 388-90.
42 Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis 1.12.4, PL 176:351D; trans, p. 191.
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574 Concern about Judaizing
being abolished which pertain to carnal observances."43 In book 2 of De sa
mentis, where he wrote in far greater detail about the sacraments of Christ
Hugh provides numerous examples in support of this general argument. He
the origin of the tonsure to the practice of the Nazareans.44 Six of the seven gr
of spiritual office-porters, readers, exorcists, subdeacons, deacons, and pr
ters (but not acolytes)-Hugh explains, are founded on the Law or the histor
the practices of ancient Judaism.45 Likewise, the sacred garments, to which
devotes an impressive, brief though they may be, sixteen chapters, are d
from the sacred garments with which Moses vested Aaron and which wer
scribed for the priests.46 Other examples could be adduced; and other exa
are, in fact, adduced in Abelard's discussion of the subject. The point mad
both Abelard and Hugh is that the maintenance of the Law within Christian
not limited to moral teachings and doctrines of faith. The daily life of the
is replete with observances retained from nonmoral precepts of the Law.47
Indifference
In the evolution of academic theorizing about the relation of Christianity
Law, Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor were originators and innovator
in this respect, as in many others, they were exceptional in their generation. Se
academic theologians writing near mid-century, including two of the mo
brated, seem to have shared next to nothing of Abelard's and Hugh's inte
questions about circumcision and the Law. That brings us to what I have c
the second category of treatises on the Law.48
The Sententiae of Gilbert of Poitiers (1085/90-1154), for example, is a m
of concision:49 it contains thirteen very brief observations on the "sacram
circumcision" that serve as a theological and historical introduction to the
43 Ibid. 1.12.23, PL 176:362A-B; trans, p. 203.
44 Ibid. 2.3.2, PL 176:422C; trans, p. 260.
45 Ibid. 2.3.5-11, PL 176:423-30; trans, pp. 262-69.
46 Ibid. 2.4.1-16, PL 176:433-38; trans, pp. 273-78.
47 Treatise 4 of the Summa Sententiarum (PL 176:117-26), which includes chapters on the
ments in general, the sacraments of the Law, and the Ten Commandments, owes much to H
discussion. Like Hugh and Abelard, the author of this work emphasizes the identity of circu
and baptism as remedies for sin. It is, like other treatises of the first category, explicitly positiv
assessment of the Law, but it has much less to say on the subject than Abelard or Hugh of St. V
The best introduction to the Summa Sententiarum is still chapter 8 in D. E. Luscombe, The S
Peter Abelard: The Influence of Abelard's Thought in the Early Scholastic Period, Cambridge
in Medieval Life and Thought, n.s., 14 (Cambridge, Eng., 1969).
48 See p. 568, above.
49 Two versions of the Sententiae have been published; both contain thirteen items on circum
I quote from the longer of the two versions: N. M. H?ring, "Die Sententie Magistri Gislebert
vensis Episcopi," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litt?raire du moyen ?ge 45 (1978), 83-180. F
shorter version see N. M. H?ring, "Die Sententie Magistri Gisleberti Pictavensis Episcopi (II)
chives d'histoire doctrinale et litt?raire du moyen ?ge 46 (1979), 45-105. John Marenbon con
"H?ring's attribution of the Sententie to Gilbert. Doubtless they reflect Gilbert's views and
derive in part from his teaching . . . but they are almost certainly not an independent work wr
dictated by Gilbert himself." Marenbon does not, however, provide arguments for his positi
John Marenbon, "A Note on the Porretani," in Peter Dronke, ed., A History of Twelfth-Ce
Western Philosophy (Cambridge, Eng., 1988), pp. 353-54, n. 2.
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Concern about Judaizing 575
rament of entrance," that is, of baptism, because, simply enough, circumci
came before baptism.50 Gilbert limits himself to the questions typical of such trea
tises: When did circumcision begin? Against what is it effective? How is it to
done?51 What does it signify? And why was it abandoned? His answers are succinct
and raise no significant issues. In Gilbert's treatment of the subject, the only matt
of debate, a question introduced at the end of the section, is whether those w
were baptized in the period "from the nativity to the passion of Christ"-a pe
in which Gilbert and several other twelfth-century writers on the subject, includ
Peter Abelard, thought circumcision and baptism had equivalent status-mus
like the circumcised, have descended to the underworld ("ad infernum") to aw
salvation. Gilbert, like Abelard, thought they must have.52
Gilbert, on the other hand, does not ask, as Abelard does, whether Christ
should continue the practice of circumcision. Nor does his brief treatment of
cumcision prompt him to ask, as Abelard and Hugh do, whether any ancien
observances of the Law are still to be maintained in the "time of grace after
passion of Christ."s3 Gilbert, just like those Abelard criticizes in Sermon 3
being "less attentive (quidam minus attendentes)," assumes that none of the n
moral commands of the Law is to be retained.54 He lists three reasons why
cumcision was abandoned: it was not a general command, nor was it suitable f
both sexes; it was a "great torture," and so an impediment to attracting gentile
"The third reason is that all the nonmoral commands (figuralia) of the Old
had to come to an end, and so this one does too. Which is why it is said: 'The
things have passed away and, behold, all things are made new.' "56 Gilbert's f
short questions on circumcision demonstrate, first, his relative lack of interes
the subject and, second, his uncomplicated conviction that there is simply no
son to investigate the continuing role of the nonmoral commands of the Law
Christianity-they have none. Though Gilbert's very first ideological concern
explained carefully in the introduction to the Sententiae, is that the investiga
into the "hidden matters of theology" avoid both heresy and schism, his sect
50 "Sententie," p. 144: "Sed quia circumcisio ante fuit quam baptismus, dicendum est de circu
sione."
51 Gilbert's relative indifference to the potential complexities of his subject is nicely evident here.
This third question ("Quo modo?") is answered in a single brief sentence: with a stone knife on the
eighth day, so that that bit of skin ("pellicula ilia") is cut off. Hugh of St. Victor, noticeably more
attentive to the practical, historical, and exegetical issues involved, wanted to convince his readers that
there is no good reason, despite Zipporah and Joshua, for thinking that the command to circumcise
requires that it be done with a stone knife (De sacramentis 1.12.2, PL 176:349C; trans, pp. 188-89).
52 "Sententie," p. 146: "Quod potest probari in baptizatis ante passionem Christi qui, quamuis essent
baptizad, tarnen ad infernum descendebant per passionem Christi saluandi." For Abelard's statement
of the same, see Abelard, Commentaria 2, p. 130; trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 456.
53 This reflects Gilbert's analysis of the status of circumcision according to a three-age scheme.
54 Abelard, Sermon 3, PL 178:407B-C: "Quod quidam minus attendentes . . ."; trans. Murphy,
"Judaism," p. 425. See also n. 35, above.
55 "Sententie," p. 145. Both Abelard and Hugh also mention these putative problems with the sac
rament.
56 Ibid., p. 145: "Tercia causa est quia omnia figuralia ueteris legis debebant cessare, similiter et hoc.
Vnde dicitur: Vetera transierunt et ecce nova facta sunt omnia [2 Cor. 5.17]."
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576 Concern about Judaizing
on circumcision does not signal any explicit concern about the potential f
logical or practical Judaizing.57
The Sententiae Parisienses, an anonymous work that in many places sh
debt to Abelard's teaching, has even less to say about circumcision than G
Sententiae.8 Circumcision is introduced in this text only because of its p
role as the precursor to baptism. After defining sacraments, and disting
those that are necessary for salvation from those that are not, the author pro
to a brief comparative discussion of baptism and circumcision. He begins
commonplace, a sententia cited from Gregory and Augustine, that attr
circumcision and baptism the same power and purpose: "First is baptism,
all sins, actual as much as original, are removed, just as circumcision did.
Is baptism better than circumcision? If so, in what way? "But it wou
that baptism is more valuable than circumcision, because baptism opens t
[to salvation], which circumcision does not."60 The author, again follow
lard, thinks this view is mistaken. Baptism, in itself, as a sacrament neces
salvation, does not accomplish anything more than circumcision did; they
in essence, the same status. The efficacy of baptism depends on the blood of C
(rubor); once that sacrifice has taken place, circumcision would functio
the same way. "Only the blood (rubor) opens the way. So that's why the
not open for those who were baptized before the passion of Christ."'61
respects, however, the author argues that baptism is better than circum
has perfection (perfectio), appropriate for all peoples and for women as
men, and beauty (decor)-nothing washes like water-in ways that circum
does not.62
Greater perfection and beauty are, in the argument of the Sententiae Parisienses,
simply practical reasons for replacing circumcision with baptism. And for the
author of the Sententiae Parisienses, the practical is paramount: not only with
respect to baptism ("no one has reason not to be baptized, because no liquid is as
common as water") but also with respect to the "sacraments of the Law," the
entirety of which the author aims to explain away in a condensed aside en route
to the perfection and beauty of baptism. "One might ask if God, at his advent,
57 Ibid., p. 108: "Omnibus secreta th?ologie tractare uolentibus duo sunt necessaria: ueritas rerum
et congruentia uerborum; alterum quorum si desit, facit hereticum, alterum scismaticum."
58 On this work, see Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, pp. 164-68, and the introduction to
Landgraf's edition (see the following note), pp. xxvi-xxvii.
59 Sententiae Parisienses, ed. Arthur Landgraf, in ?crits th?ologiques de l'?cole d'Ab?lard, Spicile
gium Sacrum Lovaniense, ?tudes et Documents, 14 (Louvain, 1934), p. 37, lines 19-21: "Primumest
baptismus, in quo dimittuntur omnia peccata tam originalia quam actualia, etiam quod faciebat cir
cumcisio."
60 Ibid., p. 37, lines 23-24: "Sed plus baptismus quam circumcisio valere videtur, quia baptismus
viam aperit, quod non circumcisio."
61 Ibid., p. 38, lines 1-7: "Baptismus non plus valet quam circumcisio. Sed baptismus cum rubore
plus valet quam circumcisio. Si enim circumcisio ruborem haberet, tantumdem valuisset. Solus rubor
viam aperit. Unde qui baptizad sunt ante passionem Christi, non fuit via aperta. Unde filii Isra?l, cum
egredierint de terra Egipti, transierunt non solum per mare, sed per mare rubrum. Mare baptismum,
rubor passionem significabat." Cf. Abelard, Commentaria 2, p. 130, lines 249-63.
62 Sententiae Parisienses, p. 38, lines 19-27, in particular, p. 38, lines 22-25: "Propterperfectionem,
quia omnibus, tarn ludeis quam gentibus, tam maribus quam feminis convenit. Propter decorem, quia
nullus liquor est qui ita abluat sicut aqua."
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Concern about Judaizing 577
wanted to remove the sacraments of the Law, when through them h
done the same."63 Certainly, the author replies, but only because t
whole, was too thoroughly associated with Jews: "The Law was given
alone, and they lorded the sacraments of the Law over the other peo
God trying to establish universal access to salvation, the only way
the "pride of the Jews" and the enmity between them and all other
"to give other sacraments in which the Jews were able to glory no m
other peoples."64 This simultaneous defense of the salvific value of the "s
of the Law" (that circumcision and baptism, for example, have esse
same power and purpose) and condemnation of their irremediable a
with Jewishness concludes with a thoroughly practical, even prosaic
what stands in the text as an epoch-making substitution of one set o
for another: "And this is the custom of kings, who at the beginning of t
change the images on their money."65 A coin is always a coin, but
the analogy implies, ought not to circulate with the new.
A tendency toward minimizing attention to the Law and its role in
is definitively manifest just after mid-century in the Sententiae of Pete
(d. 1160), whose contribution to the systematic study of Christian
mously prevailed over its competitors, including Abelard's Theologi
De sacramentis, in the second half of the twelfth century.66 Two sec
tion 40 in book 3 and distinction 1 in book 4) include everything h
about circumcision and the Law. He repeats many of the questions al
by other authors: in some places his organization of material follows
Victor; Abelard, on the other hand, is a frequent object of criticism
model.
Lombard's treatment of the Law is brief, his assessment crisply dismissive. The
"letter" in Paul's distinction between the spirit and the letter (2 Corinthians 3.6)
is called "killing" because the Law lacks grace: "But grace was absent, and there
fore the letter was 'killing.' "67 The "difference between the Law and the Gospel"
with respect to sacraments is that "those of the Law only signified [grace], but
these of the Gospel conferred grace."68 In fact, at the start of book 4, when Lom
63 Ibid., p. 38, lines 8-9: "Queritur, si Deus in adventu suo sacramenta legis solvere voluit, cum per
ea idem posset facer?."
64 Ibid., p. 38, lines 10-17: "Sed hoc fecit, ut superbia Iudeorum reprimeretur. Lex solis ludeis data
fuit, et legis sacramenta superbiebant contra gentes. . . . Ideo alia sacramenta dare voluit, in quibus
non magis Iudei quam gentes possent gloriari."
65 Ibid., p. 38, lines 17-18: "Et hoc more regum, qui in principio regni ymagines monetarum mu
tant."
66 The final version of Lombard's Sententiae was completed between 1155 and 1157. For a fuller
study of ideas about Judaism in Lombard's Sententiae, see Murphy, "Judaism," pp. 392-406. For an
introduction to the development of "systematic theology," and a comparison of Lombard's attempts
with those of his predecessors, see Marcia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, Brill's Studies in Intellectual
History 41/1-2 (Leiden, 1994), pp. 33-90. A classic orientation to the same is found in J. de Ghellinck,
Le mouvement th?ologique du Xlle si?cle, 2nd ed., Museum Lessianum, Section Historique, 10
(Bruges, 1948), pp. 113-296.
67 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae 3.40.2, 3rd ed., Spicilegium Bonaventurianum
4-5 (Rome, 1971-81), 2:229: "Gratia autem deerat, et ideo littera occidens erat."
68 Ibid. 3.40.3, 2:229: "Diversa etiam sacramenta, quia illa tantum significabant, haec conferunt
gratiam."
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578 Concern about Judaizing
bard introduces the idea of sacraments, he points out that it is not entirely
priate even to refer to the observances of the Law as "sacraments"; they are
called simply "signs" because they signify grace without conferring 't.69
In a series of questions on circumcision, Lombard insists that circumcisio
changed to baptism not simply for practical reasons-the beauty, perfection
attractiveness of baptism emphasized by Abelard, Hugh, and the Sententiae
sienses-but because circumcision could not do what baptism can: "For
[i.e., with circumcision] sins were removed-that's all-but no added gra
doing well, nor was possession or increase of virtue offered."70 Without ch
the borders of this debate-the idea, for example, propounded by Abelard,
and the author of the Sententiae Parisienses, that the sacrament of baptism
circumcision) does not in itself confer grace-I want to emphasize that Lom
is deliberately closing off possibilities opened by Abelard and Hugh of St. V
His minimal attention to the subject does not simply reflect a lack of intere
difficult editorial choice made in the face of so much theological material; it
consequence of a diminished assessment of the value of the Law, both in th
and, most certainly, in the present.71
Concern
I have tried so far to group mid-twelfth-century treatments of the Law according
to the varying objectives that moved their authors. In the first category, Abelard
and Hugh represent an expansive interest in the Law that emphasizes the power
of the Law (for teaching and sanctification) before the advent of Christ and the
continued role of the Law, interpreted according to the letter, in Christian obser
vance and self-understanding. In the second category, Gilbert of Poitiers, the anon
ymous Sententiae Parisienses, and, most importantly, given the eventual influence
of his work, Peter Lombard treat the issues raises by Abelard and Hugh cursorily,
emphasizing the inadequacies of the Law and its complete abandonment at the
advent of Christianity. In the third category I begin with Roland of Bologna, the
author of a relatively long series of questions on circumcision and the Law, who
was clearly motivated by the desire to demonstrate the failings of the Law and its
total inadmissibility, in anything but a spiritual sense, in the "age" of Christianity.
Roland, a probable one-time student of Peter Abelard, included nine questions
69 Ibid. 4.1.4.3,2:233.
70 Ibid. 4.1.9.5, 2:238: "Ibi enim peccata solum dimittebantur, sed nee gratia ad bene operandum
adiutrix, nee virtutum possessio vel augmentum ibi praestabatur."
71 This is amply confirmed by a passage in Lombard's commentary on the Psalms (58.12) in which
he interprets the observance of circumcision, the Sabbath, and Passover as a sign marking the Jewish
people in the way that Cain was marked by a sign. Stephen Langton, making the same point, describes
the mark as "circumcision and the carnal observance of the Law." These passages are translated and
discussed in Jack Watt, "Parisian Theologians and the Jews: Peter Lombard and Peter Cantor," in
Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson, eds., The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious
Life: Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff, Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 11 (Woodbridge, Eng.,
1999), pp. 55-76, at pp. 72-73.
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Concern about Judaizing 579
on circumcision and seven questions on the Law in his Sententiae (c. 1150).
close reading of Roland's questions on circumcision reveals his frequent in
edness to Abelard. But theological convergence on a number of technical i
proves compatible with fundamental ideological divergence in their overal
sessment of the Law. And, for the purposes of this study, I need focus on only t
points at which Roland's treatment of the Law is seen to serve much the sam
as Lombard's later, shorter treatment.
At the conclusion of his section on circumcision and the Law, Roland
"whether anyone was able to be justified through sacrifices or through the Law."
This is a question about whether the Law "conferred eternal life,"74 a quest
which Abelard answered that it was indeed sufficient, though indirectly, for ete
life. According to Abelard, if one observed the Law for the right reasons,
thing else necessary for salvation would be granted through the interventi
human or divine agency.75 After listing six possible definitions for "the L
Roland proposes that "someone is both justified through the Law and not j
fied." They are "justified through the Law, that is, through the Ten Com
ments or observance of the moral commands, and not justified through the
that is, through the carnal observances. "76 We see, then, a treatise on circumcis
and the Law sharing a number of details with those of Abelard and Hugh
drawing the reader, against Abelard and Hugh, toward a thoroughgoing neg
evaluation of the nonmoral commands of the Law.
Roland's dismissal of the "carnal observances" of the Law, even in their o
time, is reinforced in what follows, as he denies that the Law as a whole is i
way a source of grace. "Why," he asks, "are the hands of Moses called heav
the hands of Christ light?"77 "The hands of Moses, that is, the precepts, are
heavy for this reason: because they only teach and do not confer grace; but
72 Die Sentenzen Rolands nachmals Papstes Alexander HL, ed. Ambrosius M. Gietl (Freib
Breisgau, 1891; repr. Amsterdam, 1969), pp. 141-53. For an introduction to Roland, see Lusco
The School of Peter Abelard, pp. 244-53. In 1977 John T. Noonan, Jr., challenged the traditi
identification of Roland of Bologna with Roland Bandinelli, later Pope Alexander III; Noonan's
ion is now generally accepted. See John T. Noonan, Jr., "Who Was Rolandus?" in Law, Church
Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. Kenneth Pennington and Robert Somerville
delphia, 1977), pp. 21-48, and James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London, 1995), pp. 49
224-25. Colish, Peter Lombard, 1:66, mentions, in passing, Roland's attitude toward the Law:
land concludes Book 1 with a consideration of the Old Law, ordained to govern man. He goe
more detail on this subject than the Abelardians do but he keeps it more firmly under contro
superseded dispensation than Hugh does."
73 Die Sentenzen Rolands, p. 152, lines 22-23: "Queritur, utrum per sacrificia seu per legem
posset iustificari."
74 Ibid., p. 152, line 27: "[Lex] . . . vitam conferebat eternam."
75 Abelard, Commentaria 3, p. 200, lines 446-50. Trans. Murphy, "Judaism," p. 475: "B
believe that all those who obey those imperfect commands out of love of God rather than fea
have revealed to them, either through some spiritual teacher or through the internal inspirat
divine grace before the day of their death, that which was lacking from perfection through ign
because the Law was silent."
76 Die Sentenzen Rolands, p. 153, lines 14-17: "Est ergo quod iustificabatur quis per legem, e
iustificabatur. Iustificabatur per legem, id est, per X preceptorum seu moralium observanciam, e
iustificabatur per legem, id est, per carnales observancias."
77 Ibid., p. 153, lines 26-27: "Queritur, quare manus Moysi dicuntur graves et manus C
leves. ..."
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580 Concern about Judaizing
precepts of Christ not only teach but also confer grace."78 That the "precep
Moses" refers, in Roland's mind, to the whole of the Law is confirmed
analogy from the world of snakes and charms with which he closes this disc
of circumcision and the Law:
Likewise, the words of the Gospel are more efficacious for preparing the hearts of
hearing them and for conferring grace than the words of the Law (legalia) were,
clear in this metaphor. Some enchanter says some words specifically established for d
ing snakes out of a cave. Imagine if the words he said are few, and, immediately
saying them, the snakes went out of the cave, which would not have happened
spoke many more words not established for this purpose. Therefore, just as some w
are thought efficacious for driving serpents from a cave, but certain others not at al
the words of the Gospel are efficacious for conferring grace and for preparing for f
the hearts of those hearing them, which the words of the Law (legalia) are not.79
The passage begins with a comparative evaluation- "the words of the Gospe
more efficacious ... than the words of the Law"-implying that the Law,
has been efficacious in "preparing the heart" and "conferring grace," but t
minimal allowance is obliterated by the metaphor and its conclusion. It is n
simply that the new snake charm works better than the old one; the old c
did not work at all.
If there is a concern with Judaizing ideas in Roland of Bologna's Sentent
that concern is implicit, handled subtly, without calling attention directly t
contrary view or labeling it as heresy. In two other mid-twelfth-century tre
on the Law, we find expansive treatments in which concern about Judaizin
explicit, in which one of the compelling motives for writing the treatise is c
to refute what is presented as a demonstrable ideological Jewishness among o
learned Christians. Robert Pullen wrote his Sententiae in the early 1140s; Ro
of Melun's Sententiae dates to the late 1150s.
Robert Pullen (d. 1146), who wrote his eight books of Sententiae probably
after the deaths of Peter Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor, shows himself in
work an unrelenting antagonist of anyone who would assert the value of the
in the past or its continuing relevance in the present.80 The first half of b
(chapters 1-14) is devoted to showing the inadequacies of the Law, in order
prepare the way for the second half (chapters 15-30), which expounds the n
of Christ and the necessity of the Incarnation.
Abelard and Hugh insisted, on patristic authority, that circumcision was a
78 Ibid., p. 154, lines 10-13: "Ad hec: manus Moysi, id est, precepta hac de causa graves dicun
quia tantum precipiebant, nee gratiam conferebant; precepta vero Christi non tantum precipiu
gratiam conferunt."
79 Ibid., p. 154, lines 13-23: "Item, maioris efficacie sunt verba evangelii ad audientium
preparanda et ad gratiam conferendam, quam essent verba legalia, ut patet in hoc simili. A
incantator dicit aliqua verba ad serpentes de caverna extrahendos proprie institu?a. Si illa licet
sint diceret, ad eorum statim prolacionem serpentes de cavernis egrederentur, quod non fieret, si
plura verba ad hoc non institu?a proferret. Sicut ergo quedam verba sunt ad serpentes de cav
evellendos efficatiam habencia, quedam vero minime, ita verba evangelii sunt efficatia ad gr
conferendam, quod non legalia, et ad audientium corda ad fidem preparanda."
80 The best introduction to Pullen is still F. Courtney, Cardinal Robert Pullen: An English Theo
of the Twelfth Century, Analecta Gregoriana 64 (Rome, 1954).
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Concern about Judaizing 581
edy for both original and actual sins. Lombard, without denying this view, l
asserted that it was nevertheless a lesser sacrament than baptism because it
not provide additional grace. Pullen, writing a decade or more before Lomb
denies (in book 5 of the Sententiae) that circumcision provided-that it c
have provided-any remedy at all for actual sins: "Furthermore, as a practice
adults, baptism also provides a remedy against actual sins (past ones only) to
an extent, perhaps, that, by the grace of expiation, they require no penalty a
the washing. But circumcision, inasmuch as it was bestowed upon boys, exc
only the original crime."81 Pullen's point is carried under cover of a mere ma
of-fact observation: only adults have "actual sins"; circumcision is for "boys"
baptism for "adults"; and, therefore, baptism is a remedy for actual sins, b
circumcision is not. Of course, Pullen knew full well that Christians baptize
dren and that Abraham and his first son and his male servants were all circumciz
as adults at the institution of the ancient sacrament. Following his own log
Pullen would have to admit that, as sacraments for children, neither baptism
circumcision provides a remedy for actual sins. The comparison that count
this question, is the comparison of the sacraments as applied to adults. This i
comparison that Abelard and Hugh and the patristic authorities behind them
have had in mind when they attributed to circumcision the power to remove actu
sins. Pullen's rhetorical strategy, here, is to dismiss as merely silly the very
that circumcision remedied actual sins by ignoring the biblical evidence for a
circumcision.
In book 3 Pullen denies that there is any salvific value whatsoever in the precepts
of the Law: "Therefore, those who, spiritually diseased, were under the Law re
ceived its commands, not for the restoration of health, but for the mitigation of
punishment, so that 'the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of
the free,' that is, the people of the synagogue with the people of the church."82
His belief in the near-total damnation of past Jews is unusually severe: "But now
that whole people is to be counted among the condemned, except those-among
many, very few-who were distinguished by Christian perfection."83 This opinion,
one that I have not seen expressed by any other twelfth-century theologian, is
extraordinarily distant from the views of Abelard, for example, who believed that
faithful Jews had revealed to them everything else they needed for salvation, or
Hugh of St. Victor, who believed that Jews living before Christ were saved vicar
iously through an elite class (the prophets) who had Christian teachings miracu
lously revealed to them.84
81 Robert Pullen, Sententiarum libri octo 5.26, PL 186:849C: "Item baptisma tanquam propositum
adultis actualia etiam contra peccata (praeterita tantum) sumitur remedio, in tantum fortasse utnullam
expiationis gratia requirant poenam post lavacrum. Circumcisio vero tanquam pueris oblata solum
originalem excus?t noxam."
82 Ibid. 3.8, PL 186:772C: "Num ergo qui sub lege erant spiritualiter aegroti mandata acceperunt
non ad restitutionem salutis, verum ad lenimentum damnationis, ut Non sit haeres filius ancillae cum
filio liberae [Gal. 4.30]: videlicet populus Synagogae cum populo Ecclesiae."
83 Ibid. 3.8, PL 186:772C: "Sed jam totus ille populus cum perditis est deputandus, nisi si qui, inter
multos paucissimi, Christiana perfectione eminebant."
84 Abelard, Commentaria 3, p. 200, lines 446-50. Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis 1.10.6, PL
176-.339D; trans., p. 178.
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582 Concern about Judaizing
Pullen's treatise on the Law is as much polemical as theoretical, and eventu
the object of his polemic emerges clearly. Pullen asserts, as many twelfth-cen
theologians did, that "the sacraments of the Law" are signs of the future;85
on the basis of this commonplace observation, he condemns anyone who st
advocates the "sacraments of the Law" after the advent of Christianity: "T
sacraments of the Law, therefore, promised future things. But now the prom
are at an end because the matter of the promises has come to pass. He who
promises lies because the promise is already fulfilled."86 His example, in this
of a "figure" of a promised future thing is the Levitical distinction between
and unclean foods. That command, and its attendant promise, now constitu
lie-the statement of a promise that has already been fulfilled-and must be s
pulously avoided: "Let us not Judaize, distinguishing one kind of food from
other, because in the Law of Christ, as the Apostle testifies, 'All things are
to the clean' (Titus 1.15). Rather, as Christians, we ought to chastize our bo
through abstinence and reduce it to servitude."87 Circumcision is, in the same wa
a promise of the future that now, when observed literally, lies.88
Pullen's concern about the possibility of Christian Judaizing emerges once a
in his reminder that Christians must not observe the seventh day as a day of res
"And indeed we are able to fight with the Jews, if reason requires; but we ar
to Judaize for no reason other than danger. For the Apostle did not Judaize w
forced by dissension, he circumcized a disciple. For, imparting to the deed
reverence, he amputated the foreskin as if a finger for the sake of peace. An
much as we shun Judaism, we should also guard against the Sabbath because
it signifies is rest from vices or, as we prefer, of the soul after death."89 In sho
he reminds his readers, "The sacraments of the Law are at an end," replace
"sacraments of greater merit."90
Finally, in book 8 of his Sententiae, Pullen makes it absolutely clear that
explicit concern about Judaizing in book 3 is not simply theoretical or histo
he is concerned with ideological and practical Jewishness among contempor
85 Pullen, Sententiae 3.14, PL 186:778D: "Sacramenta futuri praesaga_" Ibid. 3.14, PL 186
"Sacramenta igitur legis futura promittebant."
86 Ibid. 3.14, PL 186:779B: "Sacramenta igitur legis futura promittebant. Sed jam cessent pr
siones quoniam promissionum successit res. Mentitur qui adhuc promittit, quoniam promissu
implevit." This point is restated at 8.9, PL 186:972B-C: "Nimirum sacramenta caeremoniarum
observata quoniam veritatem gratiae, quae jam venit adhuc futuram promittunt, falsitati jam
viunt. Umbra namque futurorum lex [Heb. 10.1], si adhuc tenetur, illud mentiens promittit futur
quod actu rei novimus praeteritum. "
87 Ibid. 3.14, PL 186:779B: "Non judaizemus cibos a cibis distinguentes, quoniam in lege Chr
teste Apost?lo, Omnia munda mundis [Tit. 1.15]. Potius ut Christiani per abstinentiam cas
corpus nostrum et in servitutem redigere debemus."
88 Ibid. 3.14,PL186:779C.
89 Ibid. 3.14, PL 186:779C-D: "Et quidem bellare cum Judaeis si ratio postulat, possumus; juda
autem nulla ratione nisi cum periculo possumus. Non enim Apostolus judaizavit, cum sedition
pulsus, discipulum circumcidit. Nam nullam facto impendens reverentiam, ita praeputium qua
tum propter pacem amputa vit. In tantum autem judaismum vitemus, ut et sabbatismum cave
quoniam quam figur?t quietem, a vitiis aut animae post mortem praeferimus."
90 Ibid. 3.14, PL 186:779D: "Legalia ergo sistuntur sacramenta, quorum loco succedunt au
quasi majoris meriti sacramenta. ..."
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Concern about Judaizing 583
Christians.91 In a further polemic against observance of the Law-this in the c
text of a discussion of Jesus's observance of the Passover meal on the night before
he was executed-Pullen argues that, according to Paul, "the cult of the Law
not at all distant from the cult of idolatry."92 As such, Christians must scrupulous
avoid observing the Law. Jews, Pullen says, "Judaize" when they abstain fro
certain foods or celebrate the Sabbath. Christians, he points out, also abstain f
certain foods and observe a day of rest (on Sunday), but as long as they do it
other reasons, by "Christian custom," they do not "keep the Law" and so do n
Judaize.93 Nevertheless, the danger of Judaizing always exists: "For unless t
great a necessity forces us, nothing is to be done with the Jews for very long or t
too great an extent, lest they be able to glory about our own kind of Judaizi
Let us take care, therefore, lest, as they say, we imitate the supper of the Lo
even to the point that we Judaize."94 Pullen's particular concern is the practi
among some Christians, of imitating Jesus by celebrating an extra Passover-t
meal outside of the church's celebration of the "Lord's supper" on Holy Thursd
What necessity, Pullen demands, compels such a violation of the Lenten fast?
"'Keeping the custom of the church,' you reply, but, among us, this is a cust
of the laity or of none or of few; the greater part of clerics do not keep this custo
and the monasteries avoid it most religiously."95 Pullen's argument against
practice concludes with this scornful rebuke of the "transgressor": "Unjust
tator of the Lord, you Judaize."96
Robert of Melun, whose Sententiae (written c. 1155-60) constantly engages
the ideas of Abelard, Hugh of St. Victor, Roland of Bologna, and other cont
poraries, announces his concern with Judaizing forms of Christianity at the v
start of his extenive examination of Christian doctrine, a work in which he h
more to say on the nature of the Law and its status in Christianity than nea
anyone I have yet discussed.97 Like Abelard and Hugh, Robert thought that Ch
tianity really cannot be understood without an assessment of the Law. Yet th
admission led him, not to explore the possibility of a continuing presence of
91 A passage in Courtney, Cardinal Robert Pullen, p. 221, brought this to my attention: "So anxio
is Pullen to prevent any reintroduction of Old Testament rites, that he inveighs at length again
custom of partaking on the evening of Maundy Thursday of a meal additional to the one sancti
by ecclesiastical Law during Lent."
92 Pullen, Sententiae 8.9, PL 186:972B: "Atque ideo vir zelo domus Dei ardens, toties contra le
disput?t, quatenus quae noviva sunt radicitus evellat, insinuens a cultu idololatriae cultum legis p
distare."
93 Ibid. 8.9, PL 186:973A.
94 Ibid. 8.9, PL 186:973A-B: "Nisi enim n?cessitas nimia cogat, nihil cum Judaeis agendum est tale
aut tandiu, ut de nostra quasi Judaizatione gloriari queant. Caveamus ergo ne, ut aiunt, coenam Domini
usque adeo imitemur, ut judaizemus."
95 Ibid. 8.9, PL 186:973B-C: "Morem Ecclesiae servandum respondes, hic autem mos laicorum aut
nullorum est apud nos, aut paucorum; clericorum pars maxima morem hune non servant, conven
tusque religiosissimi ?vitant."
96 Ibid. 8.9, PL 186:973D: "Dupliciter itaque praevaricatorem te constituis, dum nee praecipuum
jejunii genus observas, Domini imitator injurius judaizas."
97 On Robert of Melun, see Raymond-M. Martin, "L' uvre th?ologique de Robert de Melun,"
Revue d'histoire eccl?siastique 15 (1914), 456-89; and Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard, chap
ter 12.
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584 Concern about Judaizing
Law in Christianity, but to argue against the very idea at greater length-and
greater clarity-than Roland of Bologna or Robert Pullen.
The first and second chapters of the Sententiae ask, respectively, "whethe
Old Testament fittingly precedes the New in its teaching" and "whether t
Testament is a fitting testimony to the New."98 Having defended the rightful pl
of the Old Testament in Christianity, Robert of Melun passes, in the third chapt
to what he sees as the contrary error-an error about which he seems to be
more concerned, given the relative length, intensity, and detail of his argu
"Concerning whether the Law is to be kept with the Gospel." He adopts a
strict line about the meaning of "keep (tenere)," when used in reference t
Law: "For what is it to keep the Law other than to observe its precepts? For
Law itself is precepts, and the precepts themselves are the very Law. Therefo
no way are these seen to be observed unless the Law is kept. The Law cann
kept if the precepts are not observed."99 Roland's argument that the Law is
kept in one sense and not kept in another is covered with scorn. The "
Robert of Melun argues, does not mean both the words and the future th
signified by the words-it means simply the words; if one "keeps" the Law
is committed to keeping the words.100 And this, he thinks, is unacceptable:
All those, therefore, who argue for this [the proposition that "the Law is to be kept
the Gospel"] and work to defend it are not experts in argument but in heresy. Be
indeed the contentious defense not only of a condemned opinion, but even of th
tion, makes one a heretic. Therefore, these ways of speaking are not to be kep
accepted at the same time: The Law is to be kept, the Law is not to be kept. For w
judges this to be acceptable-"The Law ought to be kept"-is guilty of heretical p
version.101
The Law, he allows, is to be "accepted (esse recipienda)" as long as it is clear that
there is no sense in which it is to be "kept": "Therefore, it must be conceded that
the Law and the precepts of the Law brought forth in witness are to be accepted;
but it will not, therefore, be true that the Law is to be kept or its rites cele
brated."'102 Robert of Melun goes to great lengths, in his very careful attention to
the language appropriate for describing the place of the Law in Christianity, to
distance Christianity from the Law and from the slightest belief that observances
of the Law have a place in Christianity. For Robert of Melun, the threat of ideo
98 uvres de Robert de Melun, ed. Raymond M. Martin, 3 vols, in 4, Spicilegium Sacrum Lovani
ense, ?tudes et Documents, 13, 18, 21, and 25 (Louvain, 1932-52), 3/1:159-62.
99 Ibid. p. 163, lines 2-6: "Quid enim aliud est legem tenere quam eius precepta observare? Nam
ipsa lex est precepta, et ipsa precepta sunt ipsa. Nullo itaque modo hec observan videntur, nisi lex
teneatur. ?eque enim Lex teneri poterit, si precepta non observantur."
100 Ibid., p. 164, lines 12-22, and the elaboration of the argument on p. 165. Roland's position is
cited at p. 164, lines 13-15: "Aiunt enim Legem adhuc esse tenendam, et Legem non esse adhuc
tenendam. Sed aliter et aliter hoc verum esse dicunt."
101 Ibid., p. 166, lines 11-19: "Quicumque ergo pro ea contendunt et in eius defensione laborant,
expertes heretice contentionis non sunt. Siquidem non solum hereticum facit dampnate sententie con
tentiosa defensio, verum etiam locutionis. Non sunt itaque tenende ac simul recipiende hee locutiones:
Lex est tenenda, Lex non est tenenda. Nam quicumque hanc recipiendam iudicaverit: Lex est tenenda,
heretice pravitatis culpe subiacebit."
102 Ibid., p. 167, lines 10-12: "Est itaque concedendum, Legem et Legis precepta in testimonium
adducta esse recipienda; sed non ideo verum erit, Legem esse tenendam nee eius ritus esse celebrandos."
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Concern about Judaizing 585
logical Jewishness is as close as Peter Abelard and, more severely still, Rolan
Bologna; the perceived proximity and seriousness of the threat are, I think, w
explain the placement of this anti-Judaizing manifesto at the very start o
Sententiae.
The second book of the Sententiae begins with 115 questions on circumcision
and the Law, evidence that those academics who have the most to say on the
subject were not necessarily motivated, as Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor were,
by an elevated sense of the Law's value.103 Chapter 17 perfectly captures the tone
and objective of the treatise as a whole: "Therefore, those who judge that the
teaching of the Law is sufficient for salvation Judaize and become wrapped up in
the error of the Jews. For if the teaching of the Law is sufficent for salvation, there
is no reason for the Gospel to replace the Law in the perfection of teaching."'104
Here, as in the introductory chapters of book 1, Robert of Melun is concerned,
above all, with establishing the heresy of Christians who teach that the Law-or
as he puts it in some places, "the whole of the Old Testament"'105 provided, in
any way at all, the teaching necessary for salvation.
5. INQUIRY AND CONCERN, C. 1160-c. 1200
In the generation following Peter Lombard and Robert of Melun, both of whom
died in the 1160s, Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) and Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205)
demonstrate the continued conviction among academic intellectuals that some
thing needed to be said about circumcision and the Law in systematic studies of
Christian doctrine.106
Peter the Chanter's Summa de sacramentis begins with three questions on the
sacraments of the Law; the second section of the work, "On the Sacrament of
Baptism," touches on circumcision in four further questions.107 His treatment of
circumcision and the Law combines aspects of my first and second categories: it
is certainly brief, and it limits, for example, the salvific efficacy of circumcision in
103 For a list of chapters, see ibid., pp. 140-46. Book 2 of the Sententiae has not been edited. I have
used Saint-Omer, Biblioth?que municipale, MS 121, fols. 1-96.
104 Saint-Omer 121, fol. 7r: "Iudaizant ergo et iudeorum involuuntur errore qui legis doctrinam
iudicant ad salutem sufficere. si enim legis doctrina ad salutem sufficiens est non est ratio evangelium
in doctrinae perfectione legi proponere."
105 See, e.g., Saint-Omer 121, fol. 6v, chapter 16.
106 A late-twelfth-century manuscript (Paris, Biblioth?que Sainte-Genevi?ve, MS 1369) includes an
anonymous stand-alone treatise on circumcision, the Law, and the sacraments of the Law covering
thirteen double-column folios. Coverage of the theoretical issues involved is, again, expansive and
detailed, while positively closed to the idea that observance of the Law, understood according to the
letter, is to be maintained, in any way, in Christianity. Consider, for example, the summary remark
just before the author commences the section on the "sacraments of the Law" (fol. 74v, lines 22-29).
It is significant that, in yet another case, the subject is thought important enough?for negative rea
sons?to merit its own treatise. The section on the "sacraments of the Law" seems to try to cover the
same ground as Abelard, in order to show that continuing certain practices of the Law does not imply
observance of the Law according to the letter. I am currently preparing an introduction to and edition
of this treatise.
107 For an introduction to Peter the Chanter, see John W Baldwin, Masters, Princes, and Merchants:
The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J., 1970). See also Watt,
"Parisian Theologians" (above, n. 71).
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586 Concern about Judaizing
the way that Peter Lombard did,108 but, at the same time, it sees the possibil
merit in the sacraments of the Law and accepts the continuation of certa
vances of the Law in Christianity.
Peter the Chanter's first and principal question on the subject asks wh
"works done according to the sacraments of the Law were meritorious."
almost exclusive focus on this single aspect of the issue allowed him to
existing evaluations of the Law and propose what he clearly regarded as
promise position. For simply by asking whether or not the sacraments of
had merit, he distances himself from works of the first category, like t
Abelard and Hugh, whose arguments unproblematically assume that mer
tached to faithful observance of the Law; and, by trying to determine
which the sacraments of the Law did have merit, he distances himself fro
of the third category, like those of Robert Pullen and Robert of Melun.
There is a point, in Peter the Chanter's back-and-forth on this first que
which he adopts a position, like that of Abelard or Hugh, on the continua
nonmoral commands of the Law in Christianity: "We still retain certain
observances (figuralibus), such as incense, which signify nothing now t
did not then." If they have merit now, he argues, and neither the observa
the thing signified by the observance has changed, then they must have had m
then: "Let us say, therefore, that works of this sort were meritorious."110 In
immediately follows, he denies the force of this argument, but he does
the first premise. Ultimately, he tries to resolve the many conflicting argum
cites, for and against the idea that there was merit in works done accordin
sacraments of the Law, by appeal to a distinction between merit and the
of merit": "Or it can be said that the authorities do not take away merit
increase of merit (cumulum meriti)."111
Though he wrote nearly twenty years later, Peter of Poitiers's treatise
Law is similar to Roland of Bologna's: expansive, largely negative in its ev
of the Law, but not explicitly anti-Judaizing.112 Book 4 of his five book
108 See Peter the Chanter, Summa de sacramentis et animae consiliis, part 1, ed. Jean-Alber
quier, Analecta Mediaevalia Namurcensia 4 (Louvain, 1954), pp. 51-52. The argument co
p. 52, lines 17-20: "Dicendum tarnen quod circumcisio non conferebat remissionem actual
quia ad hoc non fuit instituta, sed tantum ad remedium originalis peccati."
109 Ibid., p. 13, lines 1-3: "Queritur de sacramentis legalibus . . . utrum opera in eis fac
meritoria."
110 Ibid., p. 14, lines 18-24: "Adhuc retinemus quedam de illis figuralibus ut incensum qu
modo significat quod non tune. Nunquid dices quod sacerdos non meretur modo incensand
caritate? Preterea, sicut illa erant figura eorum que modo facimus, ita modo facimus quedam
figura eorum que nondum sunt, sed erunt in patria. Nunquid dices illa non esse meritoria
ergo quod huiusmodi opera erant meritoria."
111 Ibid., p. 17, lines 87-96: "Vel potest dici quod auctoritates non removent meritum, sed c
meriti. Tria enim erant in veteri testamento et similiter sunt in novo, scilicet voluntas, op
mentum in quo exercetur opus. In veteri testamento tantum ab altera extremitate hauriebat
nam agnus ui immolabatur non plus valebat quam alius agnus. In novo autem testamen
utrimque haurit, id est ab utraque extremitate: a vol?ntate enim habet opus quod est m
sacramento autem habet cumulum meriti."
112 On Peter of Poitiers, see Philip S. Moore, The Works of Peter of Poitiers, Master in
and Chancellor of Paris (1193-1205) (Washington, D.C., 1936), and the introductory m
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Concern about Judaizing 587
tentiae (c. 1167-70) begins with four extended chapters on matters having t
with revelation and sanctity before the advent of Christ: "Did the holy ones
existed before the advent of Christ deserve to go down to hell?" "What is
power of circumcision, and how does it differ from baptism?" "About the r
laws: did they bring eternal salvation to those who observed them?" La
"where do the Ten Commandments of the Law stand?" Here we have yet an
manifestation of the continuing conviction among Christian academics tha
nature of Christianity cannot be understood without understanding the prec
revelation and the relationship of the New Law to the Old. Peter of Poitie
attention to the issues involved is sustained, but, in the end, he wants espec
to impart to his readers the dead certainty that no observance should survi
Christianity of the nonmoral commands of the Law.
This point is made in the third chapter of book 4, "On the Ceremonial Prec
(De caeremonialibus)," where Peter's assertion is unqualified: "But the Law
sists in three things: promises, ceremonial precepts, and moral precepts." Of
three the promises are finished and the moral precepts ("moralia") retained
"ceremonial precepts are destroyed according to the letter."1113 Roland took
erary turn with his metaphor of the snake charmer; in a series of linked analogi
Peter of Poitiers asks us to imagine wine bars and wetness:
Now it is asked, since the ceremonial precepts signify the same thing that the lett
the Law does, why, given that the ceremonial precepts are cast aside, is the [letter of
Law] held in honor and read in the church, when nothing that is contained there
the ceremonial precepts is observed according to the letter. To which we say that
are signs that signify something present, as a circle hanging before a house indicates
wine is for sale in the house. So that if a circle is hanging and there is no wine for
it is a false sign. It is another kind of sign that signifies something past, as wetne
the earth [signifies] past rain. It is another [sign] that signifies something presen
future, as the blessing of ashes, which in the beginning of Lent are placed upon the
of Christians, signifies their present humility and future decay into ashes. But the
monial precepts were signs only of future things. So that if they were now done in s
way, it would signify that those things were future [e.g., the sacrifice of the Pass
lamb for the suffering of Christ] of which they are figures and signs. And so be
those things are no longer future, they are false signs."'14
Sententiae P?tri Pictaviensis, ed. Philip S. Moore, Marthe Dulong, and Joseph N. Garvin, Public
in Mediaeval Studies 7 and 11 (Notre Dame, Ind., 1943 and 1950). This edition includes only the
two of five books; for the rest, see PL 211:783-1280.
113 Peter of Poitiers, Sententiarum libri quinqu?, PL 211:1144C: "Lex autem in tribus consist
promissis, in caeremonialibus, in moralibus. Promissa in Christi morte impleta sunt. Caerem
ad litteram sunt destructa, sed spiritualia servantur sicut et moralia." Given the initial thre
distinction (promises, ceremonial matters, moral matters) on which his point depends, I assum
the spiritualia grouped here with the moralia are to be understood as the spiritual interpretation
the caeremonalia that still remain when the literal interpretations are destroyed.
114 Ibid., PL 211:1144C-D: "Quaeritur autem, cum caeremonialia idem significent quod littera leg
cur, illis abjectis, haec in honore habetur, et in Ecclesia legitur, cum nil quod de caeremonialib
litteram ibi contineatur observetur. Ad quod dicimus quod sunt signa quae rem praesentem signif
ut circulus ante domum pendens d?sign?t vinum esse v?nale in domo. Unde si pendeat circulus
sit vinum v?nale, falsum est signum. Est aliud signum quod significat rem praeteritam, ut madef
terrae pluviam praeteritam. Est aliud quod significat rem praesentem et futuram, ut cinis benedi
qui in Capite jejunii superponitur capitibus Christianorum, significat praesentem humilitatem eor
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588 Concern about Judaizing
There is nothing about Judaizers here, but Peter of Poitiers is clearly co
with eradicating any temptation to believe, as Abelard did, that we m
"some things according to the letter, just as we maintain the words." Ab
ing the words of the Law according to the literal sense, Peter of Poitiers
this much more to say: "But the letter of the Law is always to be venerated, b
while it is read, it confirms our faith, while it calls back to our memor
things which we believe were predicted by the holy prophets."'115 The w
the Law are to be venerated, but the commands they convey rejected.
6. INQUIRY AND POLEMIC, C. 1200-c. 1230
Two treatises from the first decades of the thirteenth century show, if any
an intensification of both academic interest in the Law and anti-Judaizing con
William of Auvergne's very long treatise on the Law, De Legibus (c. 1230
lyzes its subject far more comprehensively than any other such work wr
the twelfth century.116 And it also shows a different attitude toward the Law
that of any single treatise I have discussed so far-a striking composite of
from my first and third categories. William combines a highly positive e
of the Law and its role in Christianity with explicit warnings about the
of practical Jewishness.
William's first objective is to describe the Law and defend its worth at
(an eleven-page first chapter in the seventeenth-century edition) against i
tors, historical (the Manichees, for example) or contemporary. A section
ing miraculous proofs for the veracity of the Law concludes with this tr
its fundamental goodness, a tribute more comprehensive and definitive th
Abelard's:
Therefore, it is clear from all these [testimonies] that the Law of Moses was r
with God as author and source. That is why there is nothing in it that is useless
superfluous, nothing absurd. Therefore, there is nothing in it, whether comm
prohibition, nothing, whether Law or story, that does not have a rational exp
and sufficient reason, whether concealed or manifest.117
et futuram resolutionem in pulverem. Caeremonialia autem non erant signa nisi rei futura
modo fi?rent, significaretur quod illa essent futura quorum haec sunt figurae et signa. Et i
non sint futura, falsa essent signa."
115 Ibid., PL 211:1144D-1145A: "Sed legis littera ideo semper est veneranda, quia dum legi
nostram confirm?t, dum nobis ad memoriam revocat ea quae credimus a sanctis proph
dicta. ..."
116 William of Auvergne, De Legibus, in Opera omnia, 1 (Paris, 1674; repr. Frankfurt am Main,
1963). In this edition, De Legibus covers eighty-four double-column folio pages. For an outline of
William's life, see Smalley, "William of Auvergne" (see above, n. 21), pp. 27-28. Smalley's article,
which was brought to my attention by Joseph Goering after I had completed this section on William,
includes a lengthy study of De Legibus (pp. 28-46), in which she demonstrates William's exclusive
emphasis on the literal sense and rejection of the allegorical and tropological senses in his interpretation
of the Law.
117 William of Auvergne, De Legibus, p. 25, col. IB: "Apparet igitur ex omnibus his legem Moysi
Deo authore, et conditore editam esse. Quare nihil in ea inutile, nihil supervacuum, nihil absurdum.
Nihil igitur in ea vel praeceptum, vel prohibitum est, nihil vel statutum, vel narratum, quod non habeat
causam rationalem, et sufficientem rationem, sive occultam sive manifestam."
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Concern about Judaizing 589
This observation, as unambiguous as it is, is reiterated at the start of the seco
chapter, where it serves as the starting point to a series of arguments for th
tionality of each major element of the Law:
Now, let us go back to where we were and continue our discussion, for by now it
clear that there is nothing in the whole Law that does not have a rational explanatio
whether command or prohibition or story. It is clear that there is nothing absurd, noth
irrational in it, and this is shown clearly in many places, since the matters shown t
uphold what is reputable or useful. And because of this, it is not necessary that we lab
any further. Let us begin, therefore, among other things, to examine, according to
letter, the explanations and reasons for the commands and prohibitions."18
William proceeds, from here, to a discussion of the value of sacrifices, the alt
and circumcision. And then he considers other prohibitions and commands th
"seem absurd according to the letter": uncleanness in men, women, and anim
for example, as well as commands governing clothing and the mixing of kinds
His arguments for the rationality, the goodness, the fundamental worth of e
nonmoral command of the Law as interpreted "according to the letter" are ma
but underlying them all is the argument that such commands of the Law crus
idolatry and secured devotion to the one God.120
It is the perceived value of the Law, including its nonmoral and ostensibly
rational elements, as an antidote to idolatry in the past that leads William t
embrace the rightness of continued observance of such "seemingly absurd" co
mands of the Law in the present:
Now from these, it should be clear to you, and convincing, that those things which
to be absurd in the Law are to be understood according to the letter, and that there
just and rational reasons for its commands and its prohibitions, and that in that t
the primitiveness and lack of education of the people, and the resemblance and proxim
of idolatry required precepts and prohibitions of this sort. Let us also show you that t
greater part of those [things that seem to be absurd in the Law] continue even am
us, just like, for example, commands against the observance of superstitions, which
enumerated above...."121
118 Ibid., p. 29, col. IC: "Revertamur autem ad id in quo eramus, et dicamus, quia postquam
claruit nihil esse in tota lege, quod non habeat causam rationabilem, sive praeceptionis, vel pro
tionis, aut enarrationis. Manifestum nihil esse absurdum, nihil irrationale in ea, et hoc in multi
denter apparet, cum manifestae, vel honestatem contineant, vel utilitatem. Et propter hoc non opo
nos aliquatenus laborare. Incipiamus igitur in alus, causas, et radones praeceptionum, et pro
tionum, juxta literam aperire."
119 Ibid., p. 34, col. IG.
120 See, e.g., ibid., p. 24, col. IG: "Secunda causa execrabilis idolatria multiplex, in cujus elim
tionem pro parte magna intendit lex, et hoc potissimum in omnibus mandatis, quae absurda vident
et nullam utilitatem afferre servantibus." On the Law as a weapon against idolatry, Smalley, "W
of Auvergne," pp. 30-31 (and elsewhere), demonstrates William's debt to Maimonides' Guide of
Perplexed.
121 William of Auvergne, De Legibus, p. 46, col. lH-col. 2E: "Licet autem ex his clarum tibi sit, et
m?rito, quia juxta litteram intelligenda sunt ea, quae absurda videntur esse in lege, et quia causas
habent justas ac rationabiles suae praeceptionis, et suae prohibitionis, et quia tempus id, et populi
ruditas, et ineruditio, idolatriaeque proximitas, ac vicinitas, praecepta, et prohibitiones hujusmodi
requirebant. Ostendimus etiam tibi, quia magna pars eorum etiam apud nos extant, sicut prohibitiones
observationum superstitiosarum, quas proxime enumeravimus. ..."
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590 Concern about Judaizing
The ongoing threat of idolatry, then, makes most of the Law still "reputabl
"useful" for Christians. What sort of idolatry threatened the faithful in Wi
day? This is where we see William's concern about Judaizing emerge in the
of his running defense of the Law:
[A]nd such commands and prohibitions are also observed among us on account
appearance of Jewishness and Saracenishness, and suspicions of other superstition
on account of this it is right that like commands and prohibitions were done for s
reasons much more strongly for that primitive people nourished by idolatry and pr
all around; but now let us say that if things of this sort do not have a literal sen
understanding, many unfitting and many absurd things would follow.122
And so, in William's argument, Christians avoid Jewishness, among other
tries, by observing, according to the letter, certain elements of the Law. He is v
at this point, about precisely what commands of the Law help Christians to
Jewishness (or Sarcenishness or other superstitions), but his generalized con
about Judaizing is abundantly confirmed elsewhere in the work, always in
context of a pan-historical concern about idolatry: "If someone among us w
to cease from manual labors on the day of the Sabbath, even in order to hav
for prayer, the church would not allow this, and this on account of the appe
of Jewishness (Judaismi), and if this were a custom, it would be hard to justify
What, therefore, is surprising if every kind of idolatry was forbidden that
in that time, when a kind of Jewishness is condemned in the same way a
us?"'123 And in chapter 26, on "idolatry of the elements," the mutilation and ma
ing of the body are condemned as signs and instruments of idolatry, from
Christians are rightly restrained by the Law, even as they now count circum
itself among these "most abominable pollutions." 124
In the De cessatione legalium (1231-35) of Robert Grosseteste, a work fit
squarely in my third category, we find a culmination of the anti-Judaizing imp
in academic literature on the Law.125 This treatise brings concern about ideologi
Jewishness to the forefront. As Grosseteste explains in his introduction t
treatise, his theological purpose is as much polemical as theoretical, and the
of his polemic is explicitly Christians who insist on the observance of "sacra
122 Ibid., p. 46, col. 2E: ". . .et quia etiam tales praeceptiones et prohibitiones fiunt apud nos pr
speciem Judaismi, et Saracenismi, aliarumque superstitionum suspiciones; et propter hoc m?
similibus causis similes praeceptiones, et prohibitiones primitivo illi populo, et idolatriae innutrit
circumquaque obsesso, multo fortius faciendae fuerunt: nunc vero dicemus quod si hujusmod
haberent literalem sensum, sive intelligentiam, multa inconvenientia, multaque absurda videre
123 Ibid., p. 46, col. IF: "Si quis vellet apud nos die sabbati cessare a servilibus operibus, et
vacaret orationi, non sustineret hoc Ecclesia; et hoc propter speciem Judaismi; et si consuetud
esset, dure in eum vindicaretur. Quid ergo mirum, si omnis species idolatriae tune temporis p
batur populo illi, quando species Judaismi ita damnatur apud nos?"
124 Ibid., p. 90, col. IF: "Ex his igitur omnibus apparet justitia divinae legis, quae omnia ista
prohibuit, utpote, et humani generis pollutiones abominabilissimas, et creatoris intolerabiles in
Quemadmodum enim Christiano nefas est circuncidi; sic et hujusmodi stigmatibus incid?, et
teribus imprimi, et multo amplius, videlicet quanto execrado idolatriae detestabilior est, quam
Judaicus."
125 On this treatise, see the introduction to Robert Grosseteste, De cessatione legalium, ed. Richard
C. Dales and Edward B. King, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 7 (London, 1986).
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Concern about Judaizing 591
of the Old Law." For Grosseteste, as for Robert Pullen, Robert of Melun, a
William of Auvergne, a discourse on the threat of Judaizing is not simply
academic exercise of an ancient controversy; it is directed toward present as
as past concerns:
There were many in the early church who argued that the sacraments of the Old Law
ought to be observed at the same time with the sacraments of the New Law and that
there was no salvation without their being observed. This opinion of theirs was reproved
by decree of the apostles recorded in the Acts of those same apostles, and most ably
condemned by blessed Paul in the letters to the Romans and to the Galatians. Because,
therefore, they [i.e., the proponents of the condemned position] were able to defend the
error of their opinion as much by authorities as by fallacious arguments-and because
by those arguments and authorities, even now faith can waver in the minds of the weak
let us present certain [authorities and arguments] that would seem to confirm their opin
ion, just as they occur to our small and impoverished mind and memory. And when
these have been presented and, in their place, resolved in our small measure, we will
also present certain [authorities and arguments] that disprove this error and confirm that
the Law is abolished through the grace of Christ.126
Detailed arguments then follow in favor of Christian observance of the Sabbath,
circumcision, ritual precepts, and, in general, the whole of the Law, following the
authority of Matthew 5.17. Grosseteste concludes these several pages of argument
in ways that again show that his concern is as much about the present as the past:
"Therefore, by these and other reasons of this sort, and by very many more com
pelling arguments that are concealed by the smallness of my mind, pseudoapostles
were able to defend their assertion that ritual Laws ought to be observed with the
sacraments of the Gospels. Therefore these types are adversaries of both Testa
ments because while they wish to observe both at the same time, they destroy
both."'127 His refutation promises to make clear that the "imaginings of these
calumniators are to be abolished and that the observation of the ritual observances
of the Old Law now in the time of grace is not only superfluous but even perni
cious. 9 128
126 Ibid., p. 7, lines 1-13: "Fuerunt plurimi in primitiva ecclesia qui astruerent sacramenta veteris
legis simul cum sacramentis nove legis observanda esse nee sine illorum observacione salutem esse.
Quorum sentencia decreto apostolorum in eorundem apostolorum Actibus conscripto reprobata est,
et a beato Paulo in epistolis ad Romanos et ad Galathas efficasissime improbata. Quia ergo sentencie
sue errorem tam auctoritatibus quam argumentis fallacibus potuerunt astruere, quibus argumentis et
auctoritatibus etiam adhuc posset fides in infirmorum mentibus vacillare, ponemus quedam que eorum
sentenciam videntur confirmare, prout occurent parvitati et paucitati ingenii et memorie nostre. Quibus
pro modulo nostro positis et in suis locis solutis, ponemus etiam quedam que hunc errorem improbent,
et legem per Christi graciam evacuatam esse confirment."
127 Ibid., p. 14, lines 22-26: "Hiis itaque et huiusmodi racionibus, et forte multo cogentioribus que
mei ingenii parvitatem latent, potuerunt pseudo-apostoli suam assercionem astruere de observandis
legalibus cum sacramentis evangelicis. Huiusmodi igitur pseudo-adversarii sunt utriusque testamenti,
quia dum volunt utrumque simul observare, utrumque destruunt."
128 Ibid., pp. 16, line 30-17, line 1: "Igitur ut magis clarescat quam evacuanda sunt huius calump
niarum fantasmata, et quod cerimonialium veteris legis observacio nunc tempore gracie sit non solum
supervacua, sed etiam perniciosa. ..."
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592 Concern about Judaizing
7. CONCERN ABOUT JUDAIZING IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY:
IDEOLOGICAL JEWISHNESS AND HERETICAL MOVEMENTS
In even the most explicitly anti-Judaizing treatises on the Law, the id
the targeted Judaizers is never clear. Instead, academic condemnations
logical and, less frequently, practical Jewishness do no more than sugges
world of silent Judaizers in the intellectual communities of northern E
tween the 1130s and the 1230s. These are the "certain people," the "Ju
the "weak-minded"-in short, those who, without treatises of their ow
nevertheless a staple of academic experience and discourse. Are these c
about ideological Jewishness merely academic? That is, were authors o
category treatises motivated to write simply by the recurring populari
academics (students perhaps) of certain ideas thought by their critics
generous to the role of the Law in Christianity and, thus, too close to Je
At least one later author thought otherwise. To the author of the Summ
haereticos (1184-1210), questions about ideological and practical Jew
were not merely academic. Well over half the work (sixteen of twenty-s
ters)129 is devoted to what is described as a heretical movement, the s
Passagini, who were condemned at the Synod of Verona (1184) and fou
thereafter, in the first half of the thirteenth century, by papal, conciliar,
perial authority.130 The author's stated objective is polemical, not theor
primary motive is not to explore the place of the Law in Christianity
scribe and refute Judaizing heresy-and yet, in its content and approach,
closely resembles some of the third-category treatises on the Law discuss
The second chapter against the Passagini begins in this way:
The aforesaid heretics also go further, saying that the Old Testament ough
served to the letter just like the New, arguing against us in general as well as wi
to particulars, about the observation of the Sabbath, for example, about circ
about dietary restrictions, and about certain other matters which we will take u
follows. In general, they argue against us in this way. Christ said in the Gosp
thew (5.17), "Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the prophe
fulfill them." Behold the lord of the Law did not destroy the Law but fulfill
shouldn't we observe the Law?131
These and other subjects, including the question of whether the Passove
observed and whether the ancient saints had to go down to hell before the su
129 The Garvin and Corbett edition (see below, n. 131) has twenty-seven chapters, of whic
(5-20) address the Passagini and only four (1-4) address the Cathars.
130 On the "Passagini" and "Circumcisi" see Raoul Manselli, "I Passagini," Bullettino de
storico italiano per il medio evo e Archivio Muratoriano 75 (1963), 189-210; and Walter L
and Austin P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York, 1969), pp. 173-85.
131 The Summa contra haereticos Ascribed to Praepositinus of Cremona, ed. Joseph N.
James A. Corbett, Publications in Mediaeval Studies 15 (Notre Dame, Ind., 1958), p. 92, l
"Addunt etiam prefati heretici dicentes vetus testamentum esse observandum ad litteram
vum, opponentes nobis in generali, deinde in speciali, velut de observatione sabbati, de cir
de ciborum discretione et de aliis quibusdam de quibus subsequenter tractabimus. In gen
ponunt. Dixit Christus in evangelio Matthei (5.17): Nolite putare quia veni solvere legem a
sed adimplere. Ecce dominus legis non solvit legem sed adimplevit. Quare nos debemus l
vare."
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Concern about Judaizing 593
of Christ, overlap with the treatises on circumcision and the Law that I h
examined.
Despite certain similarities between the Summa contra haereticos and acad
treatises on the Law, at least treatises of the third category, the author exp
distinguishes his own work from such treatises. He is critical of the failure
theoretical-minded to adequately refute Judaizing heresy. One must addres
says, the Passagini (and the Cathars-the contrary heretical extreme) with str
forward attention to the fundamentals necessary for salvation:
Disregarding the pointless and, indeed, pernicious subtlety of the questions of the
lastics, we want, instead, to consider, with as much care as we can, the questions
opinions which are ventured about the things necessary for salvation, those that
use to one who says with Isaiah (1.16-17): "Cease to do perversely; learn to do w
"Cease to do perversely," turning away from empty and useless things. "Learn
well," investigating rather those things which are necessary for salvation. And the
two: right faith and just works.132
What prompted this introductory diatribe, one launched, it must be emphas
not specifically against the Cathars and the Passagini-that will come lateragainst
the "scholastics"? What makes their questions "pernicious" as w
"pointless"? Is it simply that they do no good? Subtle questions, subtly considere
that do not adequately silence heretics do no good. That would seem to ma
them "pointless," but not "pernicious." The author's condemnation suggests
they not only do no good but positively do harm: perhaps the author thin
scholastic questions about circumcision and the Law are "pernicious" be
they generate or reinforce the heretical positions attacked in this Summa. If
is the case, that makes the Summa contra haereticos, despite its attempt to dista
itself from academic discourse, even more like third-category treatises on
Law-that is, academic treatises that target opinions about the Law held by o
academic intellectuals.
In the end it is difficult to say anything certain about the relation of per
ideological Jewishness to heretical movements.133 On one hand, the languag
the Summa contra haereticos suggests the existence of a Judaizing movemen
its author distinguishes academic theology from the movement, while bla
academic intellectuals for their role in abetting, if not fostering, the movem
On the other hand, upon closer inspection, the Summa contra baereticos lo
every bit as imprecise as academic condemnations of ideological Jewishness:
little hammer of the heretics attacks an almost formulaic collection of Jud
ideas, not a teacher or group or even a region in which such ideas are belie
flourish.134 He is, furthermore, familiar with the "subtle questions of the s
132 Ibid., p. 3, lines 2-15: "Inani quidem ac perniciosa scholasticorum questionum subtilitate
posita, eas pocius questiones et sententias que de rebus salud necessariis fiunt quanta possum
gentia pertractemus, ipso adiuvante qui per Ysaiam dicit (1.16-17): Quiescite agere perverse;
bene facer?. Quiescite agere perverse, vana et inutilia declinantes. Discite bene facer?, ea poci
ad salutem necessaria sunt perscrutantes. Sunt autem duo: fides recta et operado iusta."
133 Here, David Nirenberg prompted me to reconsider my initial reading of the Summa contr
reticos.
134 Perhaps the same point could be made about the other synodal or conciliar mentions of such a
movement. They are perhaps too imprecise, abbreviated, and formulaic to be by themselves convincing
evidence for the existence of Judaizing movements.
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594 Concern about Judaizing
tics" and writes on all the topics covered in unapologetically "scholastic" t
With or without a real movement, however, the Summa contra haereticos is fu
evidence of the extent to which concern about Judaizing informed the int
culture of the twelfth century. It is certainly clear that twelfth-century
about Jewishness reflected in anti-Judaizing texts flourished even in the
of significant conversions from Judaism. I think it equally clear that such con
often flourished in the absence of Judaizing movements. In the intellectual co
explored here, simple academic investigation of the place of the Law in C
ity was sometimes enough to trigger anti-Judaizing polemic.
Sean Eisen Murphy is Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies at Western Washing
versity, Bellingham, WA 98225-9064 (email: sean.murphy@wwu.edu).
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