Introduction 9
brought translations of his commentary on the Gospel of John to the Third Lateran
Council (1179). Certainly in the thirteenth century Chrysostom’s reputation was
firmly established in western Europe; both Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure
(1221–1274) frequently cite Burgundio’s translation of his commentary on the
Gospel of Matthew.^42 Nevertheless, there is no evidence that Chrysostom’s sermons
about the Jews had yet been translated, let alone that they were popular at the
papal curia.^43 Only much later, in the seventeenth century, with the first printed
books and publication of the whole corpus of Chrysostom’s works, did his Contra
Iudaeos become well known in the West.^44
Descriptions of Jews as perfidious, blind, stubborn, of their synagogues as
houses of ill-repute, did not therefore stem in our period from the writings of
Chrysostom; rather they were common currency in the Christian polemic of Peter
the Venerable, Peter the Chanter, Peter of Blois, Alain of Lille, and many others.^45
To some extent papal rhetoric reflected such contemporary works. Yet, in contrast
to polemic portraying Jews as not only misguided but a danger to Christian souls,
papal correspondence throughout the twelfth and thirteenth century makes clear
distinctions between heretics, Muslims, and Jews. Only the latter hold a special
place in God’s plan of salvation in their role as witnesses and therefore merit par-
ticular protection. It appears that contemporary and traditional Christian polemic
against Judaism had only limited influence on papal attitudes towards Jews in the
High Middle Ages.
‘Symposium in Honour of the 1600th Anniversary of St John Chrysostom held under the Aegis of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate’ (Constantinople, 13–18 September 2007), p.4.
42 Chrysostomus Baur, Saint Jean Chrysostome et ses oevres dans l’histoire litteraire (Louvain, Paris,
1907), pp.60–81; Plested, ‘Symposium in Honour of the 1600th Anniversary of St John Chrysostom’,
pp.4–6.
43 There are no records of the Contra Iudeaos in the papal libraries of Boniface VIII or in Avignon.
For works of Chrysostom which popes possessed during the Central and later Middle Ages, see
Frederick Ehrle, Historia Bibliothecae Romanorum Pontificum tum Bonifatianae tum Avenionensis, Vol. 1
(Rome, 1890), p.47; p.52; pp.55–6; p.58; Daniel Williman, Bibliothèques Ecclésiastiques au Temps de
la Papauté d’Avignon, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1980), p.24; p.145; p.148; p.178; p.280; Vol. 2 (Paris, 1980),
p.142; p.281; p.293; p.403.
44 The complete works of Chrysostom were first edited and published by Sir Henry Savile in
England in 1612. See Baur, Saint Jean Chrysostome et ses oevres dans l’historie litteraire, pp.82–223;
Plested, ‘Symposium in Honour of the 1600th Anniversary of St John Chrysostom’, pp.8–10. For
Chrysostom’s works in early printed books in England, see Medieval Libraries of Great Britain. A List
of Surviving Books, ed. N. Ker, 2nd edn A. Watson (London, 1987), pp.8–9; p.10; p.22; p.24; p.38.
45 For Peter the Chanter on the Jews, see ‘Verbum Abbreviatum’, PL 205, cols 21–554; Peter the
Venerable, Adversus Iudeorum inveteratam duritiem, ed. Y. Friedman, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio
Mediaevalis 58 (Turnhout, 1985), passim; Peter of Blois, ‘Contra Perfidiam Judaeorum’, PL 207, cols
825–70; Alain of Lille, ‘Contra Haereticos Libri Quatuor’, PL 210, cols 305–430. See Gillian Evans,
Alan of Lille. The Frontiers of Theology in the Later Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1983), pp.102–32. For
other examples of eleventh-, twelfth-, and thirteenth-century works about the Jews see, for example,
Ralph Glaber on the destruction of the temple and the Jews in PL 142, cols 611–98; Peter Damian on
the Jews in ‘Liber Primus’, PL 144, cols 205–54, especially cols 233–4; col. 423; Thomas Chobham
on heretics and Jews in Thomae de Chobham. Summa Confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield (Louvain, Paris,
1968), p.422; pp.433–5; and on usury, see pp.504–18; Caesar of Heisterbach on heretics and Jews in
Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. J. Strange (Cologne, Bonn, Brussels, 1851), Vol. 1 p.106; p.206, p.252;
Vol. 2, p.206, pp.260–4; Humbert of Romans on the eventual salvation of the Jews in Mansi, Vol. 24,
cols 115–16.