204 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
long ago made its peace with it. For Innocent, although Donin had introduced
new and damning evidence on the content of the Talmud, this evidence was to be
judged insufficient to overturn the Church’s prior position which criticized but
tolerated Jewish ‘oral Torah’.276 That change in thinking elicited objections from
odo of Châteauroux.277 odo replied negatively to Innocent. He found the new
papal position unacceptable since, according to him, the Talmud had already
been found guilty of all charges levelled at it: it was a human contrivance that con-
stituted blasphemy toward God and genuine revelation, and had been rightly
burnt.278
nevertheless, odo’s condemnation in 1248 is itself puzzling. Although, as
we have seen, he rejected Innocent’s dismissal of the charge that the Talmud was
inherently blasphemous, in his new condemnation, he neglected that but focused
instead on its intolerable contents. He seems to have capitulated to Innocent’s view
of the Talmud as not inherently blasphemous, while at the same time remaining
opposed to Innocent’s conclusion that an excised version could be returned to the
Jews. Apparently the charge that the Talmud was in and of itself blasphemous and
thus intolerable was dropped not only by Innocent, but even by his more hard-line
legate.279
PoPES AnD THE lEGACY oF THE TrIAl
oF THE TAlMuD
The charges levelled by Donin and supported by Gregory IX had the potential to
radically alter the stance of the Catholic Church towards Jews and Judaism: if the
Talmud was proved to be a marked deviation from the Hebrew Bible and thus an
offensive dismissal of biblical truth, then rabbinical Judaism might have been out-
lawed. That would have reversed the Church’s long-held position of respecting the
legitimacy of Jewish doctrine and practice. Yet, as we have seen, this did not happen:
Innocent Iv retreated from Gregory’s extreme stance and restated the rights of Jews
to live according to the dictates of their Torah as expressed in the Talmud. Indeed,
even odo and his Paris colleagues, who rejected the papal call to return the censored
Talmud to the Jews, ceased to denounce it as a rejection of genuinely divine
revelation.280
naturally, Jewish reaction to the Talmud’s burning was strong.281 Yet it appears
that the condemnations at Paris impinged little on the actual practice of Jewish
‘oral Torah’ by French Jews during the two decades between nicholas Donin in
the 1240s and Friar Paul Christian in the 1260s. Elsewhere in Europe, secular
authorities tended to follow the milder view articulated by Innocent Iv in 1247.
276 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.54.
277 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.52.
278 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.54, p.54.
279 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.55.
280 The Trial of the Talmud: Paris 1240, ed. Chazan, p.81.
281 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.342.