Jewish Ideas about the Papacy 61
months leading up to his appointed audience with pope Nicholas iii (1277–1280),
and when the pope died before the meeting could take place, took this as confirm-
ation that he himself was the pre-ordained Messiah.189
A good example of an account of the relationship between popes and the pro-
spect of messianic redemption at the end of days is to be found in a commentary
on the Aggadah by the thirteenth-century provencal author, isaac ben Yedaiah. He
described how:
there, in his palace, dwells the pope, who rules and presides over all who follow the
faith. And the cardinals, his advisers, surround him, wisely strengthening every breach
in the religion day after day.190But the Messiah:
will come in rome before the greatest of all the gentile kings of flesh and blood [the
pope], just as the masters of the prophets came before that great king, pharaoh, and
all his ministers and servants.. .191And He:
will go to rome, and request their supreme leader and his advisers to write to the kings
under his hegemony, and seal it with his bull, that they must restore to him the people
[of israel],... But they [the pope and his advisers] will not believe him until he per-
forms powerful signs and unmistakable portents in the sight of all present. Then will
the pope know and recognize that he is an emissary of the true god, and he will send
his legate to all the kings, near and far, [informing them] that the Jews are about to go
forth from slavery to freedom, and that they must let every Jew go by himself, freely,
demanding no money, for a redeemer has come to Zion.192Nachmanides (1194–1227), the foremost Halakhist and biblical scholar of his
age, and isaac ben Yedaiah’s contemporary, similarly emphasized the important re-
lationship between pope and Messiah, when examining the idea of the Jews being
freed at the end of days.193 The Vikuah Ha-Ramban, a Hebrew narrative in dialogue
of Christian doctrines and desire to refute them, see Daniel Lasker, ‘rashi and Maimonides on
Christianity’, in Between Rashi and Maimonides. Themes in Medieval Jewish Thought, Literature and
Exegis, ed. E. Kanarfogel, M. Sokolow (New York, 2010), pp.14–19.
189 Hames, Like Angels on Jacob’s Ladder, p.73; p.84; p.88.
190 For isaac ben Yedaiah, see, for example, translated in Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis, passim;
Chazan, Daggers of Faith, pp.69–70; p.86; p.88; p.170; isaac ben Yedaiah translated in Saperstein,
Decoding the Rabbis, p.103.
191 isaac ben Yedaiah translated in Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis, p.103.
192 isaac ben Yedaiah translated in Saperstein, Decoding the Rabbis, p.104.
193 Nachmanides, ‘Vikuah ha-ramban’, in Osar wikuhim, ed. Eisenstein, p.88; p.90. More re-
cently in Kitve rabenu Mosheh ben Nahman: yotsi’m la’or ‘al-pi kitve yad u-defusim ri’shonim, ed.
H. D. Chavel (Jerusalem, 1963), Vol. 1, p.306; p.312; for his translation of the work, see The
Disputation at Barcelona, ed. C. B. Chavel (New York, 1983). For discussion of Nachmanides and his
reading of biblical narratives see, for example, Abulafia, ‘Christians and Jews in the High Middle
Ages’, p.20; Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, pp.98–121; Rabbi Moses Nahmanides (Ramban).
Explorations in his Religious and Literary Virtuosity, ed. i. twersky (Cambridge, Mass., London, 1983),
pp.1–9; Lasker, ‘rashi and Maimonides on Christianity’, ed. Kanerfogel, Sokolow, pp.14–19. For
Nachmanides on the general themes of messianic redemption in the ‘Sefer ha-gedulah’, a later work,
see Chazan, Barcelona and Beyond, pp.172–94.