The Papacy and the Place of Jews in Christian Society 221
Then, at the express directive of Gregory X, the Dominican Humbert of Romans
(1190/1200–1277) wrote the Opusculum Tripartitum, a conspectus of the items to
be discussed at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274. In Chapters 5 and 15 he
reiterated the principle that Jews were to be tolerated provided they were passive
and posed no threat to Christianity. By contrast Muslims were to be feared because
they actively threatened Christians.104 Humbert’s views were endorsed by the pope:105
Gregory IX had already stated categorically in the Liber extra in a gloss on ‘Sicut
Iudaeis’ that the Jews were not to be considered hostile, even though they were
enemies of the Faith;106 Hostiensis summed this up by stating that, although Jews
were enemies of the Faith, nevertheless they served Christian society which toler-
ated and defended them.107
THe PAPACy AND JeWS AS POTeNTIAL eNeMIeS
yet some historians have argued that, because of the increasing influence of the
mendicant friars in the thirteenth century, the old Augustinian idea of Jewish ser-
vitude was replaced by a more hostile attitude based on the perception of a more
aggressive and proselytizing anti-Christian Judaism.108 Certainly it seems that
from the pontificate of Innocent III onwards, together with the continuing idea of
servitude, popes began to emphasize more frequently that Jews were potential en-
emies of Christian society.109 Indeed such an idea was not new: as early as the
eleventh century Peter Damian (1007–1072) had attacked heretics and heresy as
worse than ‘the Jewish perfidy itself ’.110 Furthermore, in the twelfth century the
election in 1130 of the anti-pope Anacletus II, a member of the Jewish Pierleoni
family, may have encouraged subsequent popes to view Jews as an ‘internal’ threat,
not least because the Pierleoni remained an important Roman dynasty, producing
a number of cardinals.111 Although this particular case arose in a very specific
context and by no means signalled a general condemnation of Jews as ‘internal’
enemies, it was nevertheless significant in the development of anti-Jewish feeling.
deputandi ad aliqua sordida officia, ne possint se extollere super christianos.’ See Abulafia, Christian-
Jewish Relations 1000–1300, p.195.
104 Lyons II (1274), Cap 5, Grayzel, Vol. 2, p.129: ‘Primum quidem Judaei scientia convicti, potentia
subacti, nihil ultra sciunt aut possunt contra populum Christianum... Septimo autem, Saraceni
simper in malitia perseverant’; Lyons II (1274), Cap. 15, Grayzel, Vol. 2, p.130: ‘Quibus responden-
dum est, primo de Judaeis, qui tolerantur, quia reliquiae Israel salvae fient. Item, quia crudele esset
mactare subjectos. Item propter prohibitionem prophetae dicentis; Ne occidas eos, ne quando oblivis-
cantur populi mei... Saraceni, et ideo primitus expugnandi.’
105 See Grayzel, Vol. 2, p.130, footnote 2.
106 X.5.6.9, col. 774. See Abulafia, Christian-Jewish Relations 1000–1300, p.198.
107 Hostiensis, Summa aurea, Book 5, cols 1517–22, cols 1525–8, passim. See Abulafia, Christian-
Jewish Relations 1000–1300, p.198.
108 Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, pp.242–64.
109 For further discussion see Robert Chazan, God, Humanity and History: the Hebrew First Crusade
Narratives (Berkeley, 2000), p.3.
110 Peter Damian, ‘Liber qui dicitur gratissimus’, Opera omnia, PL 145, col. 153; ‘De Sacramentis
per improbos administratis’, PL 145, cols 529–30.
111 Louis Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (New york, 1925),
pp.248–52.