The Papal Promise of Protection 75
activities of Jews in christian society must remain limited, he also urged that clergy
ensure they be treated justly and granted their legal rights; as a result Jews too bene-
fitted from the code.53
Gregory emphasized that Jews must not be forced to accept baptism and that
only Jews who of their own free will and religious conviction sought refuge among
christians were to be baptized. one of his letters stating that conversion was to
be by persuasion alone was considered by later canonists to be so important that
it was included in Gratian’s Concordia discordantium canonum (‘harmony of
discordant canons’). This seminal work of canon law—otherwise known as the
Decretum—appeared about 1140 and became the bedrock of all later work by both
decretists—canon lawyers who commented on the Decretum—and decretalists—
those who commented on twelfth- and thirteenth-century papal decretals. The
only exception to Gregory’s protective stance towards Jews was his approval of the
limited tightening of restrictive measures against them instigated by the Visgothic
King reccared at the Third council of Toledo in 589. That included legislation
about Jews owning christian slaves, the exclusion of Jews from public office,
Jewish proselytizing, and most crucially intermarriage between christians and
Jews: any offspring from such marriages were to be forcibly baptized.54
Much later, in the eleventh century, Gregory’s ideas were revisited and empha-
sized anew by Alexander ii in the particular context of the Spanish Reconquista.
in his letter ‘Placuit nobis’ (1063) Alexander praised Spanish bishops for restraining
those campaigning against Muslims in Spain from also attacking Jews, thereby
re-affirming the traditional teaching of the church. Such leniency would ensure,
he hoped, that the Jews might be reconciled to christianity when, according to Pauline
theology, a remnant of them would be saved after recognizing christ as the Messiah
at the end of the world.55 Alexander explicitly cited Gregory i on forbidding
christians to harm Jews, declaring that God in his Mercy had spared the latter so
that they might live scattered throughout the globe:
Thus also the blessed Gregory prohibited certain men who were inflamed to destroy
them [the Jews]. he denounced it as impious to want to destroy those who had been
preserved by the mercy of God... that they should live dispersed throughout the ter-
ritories and lands of the whole world.56Alexander stated categorically that Jews must be protected, because, unlike the
Muslims in Spain who drove christians from their homes, they were everywhere
prepared to serve christians.57 his letter outlining the papacy’s attitude towards
53 Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, pp.214–15; pp.220–1.
54 for full details of the restrictive legislation of reccared, see Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the
Jews. History, pp.40–2.
55 for the idea of Jewish service, see St Augustine, Adversus Iudaeos, ed. deferrari, ch. 8, p.407. See
Stow, Alienated Minority, pp.17–19; p.39; John Watt, The Theory of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth
Century: the Contribution of the Canonists (New York, 1965), p.139.
56 Alexander ii, ‘Placuit nobis’ (1063), Simonsohn, p.36: ‘Sic etiam beatus Gregorius quosdam qui
ad eos delendos exardescebant prohibuit, impium esse denuntians eos delere velle, qui dei misericor-
dia servati sunt, ut... per terrarum orbis plagas dispersi vivant.’
57 The phrase is ‘hi vero ubique parati sunt servire’. See Alexander ii, ‘Placuit nobis’, Simonsohn, p.36.