Papal Rhetoric: Heretics, Muslims, and Jews 257
... Jews and Pagans, recognising the true light may from the darkness and shadow of
death run to Christ, the light, the Way, the Truth, and the life.. .66
Such statements reflected and echoed a rhetoric about minority groups common
in the polemical literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Popes might compare Muslims, heretics, pagans, and Jews in order to make a
particular theological point. So Gregory VII insisted in a letter of 1084 that no
salvation could come from the religion of Jews, Muslims, or pagans (again here
nonbelievers).67 or the intention might be to encourage the conversion of
nonChristians, as the ‘Evangelica docente scriptura’ of 1205 to the prelates and
clergy of Constantinople in which Innocent III emphasized the importance of
converting Jews and pagans (here possibly a reference to Muslims):68
That, however, I may not become confounded by reason of over much insensibility, I
ought to note carefully what Jesus said to Simon, ‘Fear not, for henceforth thou shalt
catch men.’ It is as if he had said, ‘Thou mayst be absolutely sure that after thou hast
caught the fish,’ that is, after you have led back the Christians, ‘thenceforth thou wilt
catch men’, that is, you will convert Jews and Pagans.69or to prevent Christians converting to other religions, as in a letter of nicholas IV
of 1288 in which he urged the king of hungary to give up all association with
Muslims, pagans, and nonbelievers generally.70
Muslims and Jews—‘infideles’ (‘infidels’)—featured particularly prominently in
papal correspondence concerned with the sacraments of marriage and baptism. So,
in a letter dated between 1187 and 1191, Clement III informed the bishop of
Segovia that Jewish converts married to relatives contrary to canon law need not be
parted from their wives.71 or, in a letter of 1198 to the archbishop and chapter
of Tyre, Innocent III affirmed that in the case of infidels who had converted to
Catholicism and had been married before conversion, such marriages were not to
be dissolved upon baptism.72 or, in a letter of 1206 he urged the clergy of Barcelona
to baptize any Jew or Muslim who asked for it.73 In 1264, urban IV asked the
Patriarch of Jerusalem to ensure that at least while they were being instructed in
the Faith, povertystricken Muslims and Jews who had come to Acre wanting to be
66 honorius III, ‘Ineffabilis providentia dei’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.174: ‘... heretici, errore dimisso, ab
invio reducantur ad viam; Judei atque Pagani, vero lumine cognito, de tenebris et umbra mortis cur
rant ad Christum, lucem, viam, veritatem et vitam... ’
67 Alexander II, ‘Pervenit frates karisssimi’ (July–november 1084), Simonsohn, pp.39–41.
68 Innocent III, ‘Evangelica docente scriptura’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.110.
69 Innocent III, ‘Evangelica docente scriptura’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.110: ‘Sed ne forte pro nimio stu
pore confundar, notare debeo diligenter, quod Jesus inquit ad Simonem: noli timere, quoniam ex hoc
jam homines eris capiens, quasi dicat: Pro certo confide, quia, postquam ceperis pisces, id est post
quam reduxeris Christianos, extunc homines capies, id est Judeos et paganos convertes.’
70 nicholas IV, ‘Si sparsa semina’ (8 August 1288), Grayzel, Vol. 2, pp.169–71. nB: Jews were not
mentioned specifically in this letter.
71 Clement III, ‘Interrogatum est ex’ (1187–1191), Simonsohn, p.65: ‘utrum Judaei vel Saraceni ad
fidem Christianam conversi’.
72 Innocent III, ‘de infidelibus ad’ (30 december 1198), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.88; Simonsohn, p.72.
73 Innocent III, ‘orta tempestate in’ (26 August 1206), Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.118; Simonsohn,
pp.88–9.