6 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
and allowed to worship freely. In advocating comparative toleration even he, there-
fore, did little more than re-assert ancient patristic teaching and contemporary
canon law about the Jews’ proper place in Christian society.^22 By contrast, his
Franciscan contemporary Duns Scotus (c.1266–1308) argued, against the Augustinian
tradition, that force should be used to convert Jews and even advocated shutting
up a small group of Jews on a remote island in order to fulfil the requirement that
the Remnant be saved.^23
PAuLINE AND PATRISTIC INFLuENCES
When they did pronounce on the Jews, popes relied on biblical and patristic prece-
dent to provide their statements with a theological framework. The Church father
St Jerome (c.347–420) himself had known of and drew on rabbinical literature.^24
Historians have frequently, but not always accurately, discussed the influence of
Pauline and Augustinian theology on papal pronouncements. In Romans 11 St Paul
had argued that the Jews would be reconciled to the Christian faith at the end of
days.^25 He taught that then Israel would be saved and that the Jews’ conversion en
masse would signal the dawn of a new era predicted by the prophets of the Old
Testament.^26 Paul himself never committed Jews to a subservient role in society;
even had he wanted to, he was writing in Romans for a mixed Christian community
22 For Aquinas on disbelief, heresy, and apostasy, see Summa Theologiae, ed. T. Gilby (London,
1975), Vol. 32, pp.38–78; pp.80–94; pp.96–102. For Aquinas on usury (under ‘On Almsgiving’,
pp.236–72), see Vol. 34 (London, 1975), pp.260–2. For English translations, see The Summa
Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Part 2,
Second Part, QQI-XLVI (London, 1916), pp.120–63 and The Summa Theologica of St Thomas
Aquinas, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Part 2, Second Part, QQXLVII-
LXXIX (London, 1929), pp.329–41. See also Grayzel, Vol. 2, p.10; Liebeschütz, ‘Judaism and Jewry
in the Social Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas’, 80; Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, p.106; p.109; p.111.
23 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.29; p.255.
24 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.295.
25 Romans 11: 11–12, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, Vol. 2, 2nd edn, ed. R. Weber
(Stuttgart, 1975): ‘... dico ergo numquid sic offenderunt ut caderent absit sed illorum delicto salus
gentibus ut illos aemulentur quod si delictum illorum divitiae sunt mundi et deminutio eorum divi-
tiae gentium quanto magis plenitude eorum... ’; for an accurate translation from the Vulgate, see The
Holy Bible Translated from the Latin Vulgate; The Old Testament First Published by the English College at
Douay, A.D. 1609; and The New Testament First Published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582
(Belfast, 1858): ‘... I say then have they so stumbled that they should fall? God forbid. But by their
offence, salvation has come to the gentiles, that they may be emulous of them. Now if the offence of
them be the riches of the world, and the diminution of them, the inches of the gentiles; how much
more the fullness of them?... ’.
26 Romans 11: 25–6, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, Vol. 2, ed. Weber: ‘... quia caecitas ex
parte contigit in Israhel donec plenitude gentium intraret et sic omnis Israhel salvus fieret... ’; see The
Holy Bible Translated from the Latin Vulgate: ‘... that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the
fullness of the gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved... ’; see Stow, ‘The Church
and the Jews: St Paul to Pius IX’, p.3. See also Romans 11: 26–7, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versio-
nem, Vol. 2, ed. Weber: ‘... sicut scriptum est veniet ex Sion qui eripiat avertet impietates ab Iacob et
hoc illis a me testamentum cum abstulero peccata eorum... ’; see The Holy Bible Translated from the
Latin Vulgate: ‘... as it is written: “there shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn
away ungodliness from Jacob”. And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins... ’.