Papal Claims to Authority over Judaism 201
... we then, bound as we are by the Divine command to tolerate them in their law,
thought fit to have the answer given them that we do not want to deprive them of
their books if as a result we should be depriving them of their law.259
He also reported that he had advised his legate, the bishop of Tusculum, to make
sure the Talmud was shown to him and carefully inspected, but that he should
tolerate anything contained in it that could be tolerated without causing injury to
Christianity. In fact the legate was to restore their books to the Jews, quieting their
opponents by ecclesiastical censure without appeal.
The letter to louis in 1247 reveals that Innocent changed his mind.260 He
understood full well that the Jewish leadership in France had been active in defence
of the condemned Talmud, arguing that it lay at the core of Jewish religious life:
themes which his predecessor’s letters and indeed his own letter of 1244 had
acknowledged. Yet Innocent now saw Jewish arguments as grounds for recon-
sidering the condemnation.261 He pointed to the age-old Christian doctrine of
toleration of Jews qua Jews in Christian society: despite intense criticism of the
Talmud by Peter the venerable, there had never been a hint that it should be
banned. So although Innocent originally supported Gregory’s understanding of
the Talmud and had taken steps against it, he now backtracked, abandoning the
idea that it was inherently offensive to God, while retaining a concern that it con-
tained intolerable anti-Christian material.262
Innocent Iv’s correspondence shows both that he knew that the Church had
always permitted Jews to live by their traditional law, but also that they were not to
malign or demean the Christian faith or harm its adherents. He therefore proposed
a new solution: intolerable material contained in the Talmud should be dealt with
by the bishop of Tusculum who should organize its inspection, but that whatever
material ought to be tolerated should be, and this should be subsequently returned
to the Jews.263 Innocent knew that the Talmud had already been carefully examined
by the university of Paris and had been found guilty of containing anti- Christian
matter.
His predecessor Gregory IX had stipulated that if the allegations were true it
must be burnt and prohibited— notwithstanding Jewish rights. In 1247 Innocent
did not challenge Gregory’s concerns or his call to investigate the Talmud. rather
he challenged a major finding of the Paris jury that it was inherently disrespectful
towards God. Hence he believed that the remaining anti-Christian material could
be dealt with through censorship—thereby both maintaining the Jews’ traditional
right of freedom of worship in Christian society while simultaneously protecting
that society against corrosive Jewish influence.264 Just as Gregory had anticipated
259 Innocent Iv, ‘Ad instar animalium’, Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.278–80; Simonsohn, p.197: ‘nos qui juxta
mandatum divinum in eadem lege ipsos tolerare tenemur, dignum eis duximus respondendum quod
sicut eos ipsa lege sic perconsequens suis libris nolumus injuste privare’.
260 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.24.
261 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.24.
262 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.25.
263 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.25.
264 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.26.