Jewish Ideas about the Papacy 65
as major incongruities in Christianity—not least the theory of apostolic succes-
sion.211 it is important to recall again that although they valued papal protection,
they were especially hostile to this doctrine. Nevertheless, despite their contempt
for the Scriptural and theological formulations on which Christian claims about
apostolic authority rested, they often respected the spiritual and temporal power
which the papacy exercised over its Christian subjects; indeed they thus contrib-
uted, at times deliberately, at other times unwittingly, to the aura of power and
authority surrounding the papacy itself. whether through popular legends or
learned disputations, a relatively positive feeling towards individual popes persists
in the Hebrew literature of the High Middle Ages: Christianity was fundamentally
mistaken, but popes were often more reliable sources of protection than their
Christian flock.
211 Abulafia, ‘invectives against Christianity in the Hebrew Chronicles’, pp.66–72.