56 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
afforded a very different political and religious context for later Jewish polemics.
Yet they remain strikingly similar in both content and tone. Thus the Jewish phil-
osopher Joseph Albo (c.1340–1444) ridiculed the Christian claim that judgements
of an emperor or a pope could make up for deficiencies in the divine torah,160 in
particular questioning the authority of pope Sylvester i (314–335), who, according
to legend, not only oversaw the first disputation between a pope and Jews, but
changed the Sabbath observance (Shabbat) from Saturday to Sunday.161 This was
a particular bone of contention since, according to Christian readings of genesis
and Exodus, the Sabbath was a day beyond the bounds of historical time, and a
weekly anticipation of the end of time, while for Jews it was also a day of rest.162
Citing Exodus 16: 29, Albo argued that ‘the outpouring of manna is proof that the
day of the Shabbat itself was created by the forces of divine power’,163 and com-
plained that:
the Shabbat Mitzvah was adhered to by Jesus and all his disciples, but three hundred
years after Jesus died one pope altered the tradition and ordered that they keep Sunday
instead of Saturday.164Albo failed to consider how pope Sylvester’s ‘decision’ derived from the Christian
belief that Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. He may not have known first-hand
of Sylvester’s supposed decision, but that is highly unlikely given his familiarity
with Christian theology; or he perhaps thought that the resurrection—that Jesus
rose from the dead and is the son of god—was so ridiculous or offensive as not to
be worth mentioning to a Jewish audience. More likely—and disingenuously—he
avoided drawing it to his readers’ attention lest they realize that Christians had
what they would consider a convincing explanation for the change.
in the same spirit of refutation, the Sefer Klimat ha–Goyim, a fourteenth-century
polemic written by profiat Duran (c.1350–1415), a noted rabbi of perpignan, both
cast doubts on apostolic powers of binding and loosing, and showed sound know-
ledge of Christian arguments and sacred texts.165 in Chapter Eight he discussed the
160 For an easily accessible edition of the text, see Joseph Albo, ‘Vikuah r. Yosef Albo’, in Osar
wikuhim, ed. J. D. Eisenstein, pp.114–15. For a more recent and accurate text, see ‘Sefer ha-
‘iqqarim’/‘Book of principles’, in Ma’amar 3, ed. i. Husik, Chapter 25 (philadelphia, 1946), Vol. 3,
p.241. For discussion of the work of Joseph Albo see, for example, Baron, A Social and Religious
History of the Jews, Vol. 9, pp.89–90; p.104 and much more recently Judaism on Trial, ed. Maccoby,
p.50; p.92; p.169; p.178; p.197; p.198; p.200; p.220.
161 Joseph Albo, ‘Vikuah r.Yosef Albo’, in Osar wikuhim, ed. Eisenstein, p.115; ‘Sefer ha-‘iqqarim
/ Book of principles’, in Ma’amar 3, ed. and trans. Husik, Chapter 25, Vol. 3, p.241; see also the same
complaint about pope Sylvester i in Hasdai Crescas, ‘Bitul ‘iqarei dat ha-nosrim’, in Osar wikuhim in
J. D. Eisenstein, pp.307–8, and Bitul ‘iqarei dat ha-nosrim, ed. E. Deinard (Kearny, N.J., 1904),
pp.62–3. See Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, p.293.
162 Yerushalmi, Zakhor, p.42; Blumenkranz, ‘The roman Church and the Jews’, p.211.
163 Joseph Albo, ‘Vikuah r.Yosef Albo’, in Osar wikuhim, ed. Eisenstein, p.115; ‘Sefer ha-‘iqqarim
/ Book of principles’, in Ma’amar 3, ed. Husik, Chapter 25, Vol. 3, p.241.
164 Joseph Albo, ‘Vikuah r.Yosef Albo’, in Osar wikuhim, ed. Eisenstein, p.115; ‘Sefer ha-‘iqqarim
/ Book of principles’, in Ma’amar 3, ed. Husik, Chapter 25, Vol. 3, p.241.
165 profiat Duran (isaac ben Moses Efodi) was for a while swayed by the wave of conversions in
1391, but subsequently returned to Judaism and became one of its chief defenders. For discussion of
profiat Duran see, for example, Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Vol. 9, p.103; Judaism
on Trial, ed. Maccoby, p.28; p.143; Cohen, The Friars and the Jews, p.191; Frank talmage, The
Polemical Writings of Profiat Duran (Jerusalem, 1981), pp.16–21. For discussion of the ‘Sefer klimat