The history of disputations between Jews and Christians goes back to the very beginnings of the Christian Era, but two distinct periods of disputation can be discerned between the two religious groups.  The first corresponds more or less with the patristic period within the Christian Church (i.e. about A.D. 100 to A.D. 700); the second period begins in the thirteenth century and continues up until approximately the eighteenth century, it should be noted that the number of disputations lessens with the passage of time.  At the end of the first period there is a marked decrease in the knowledge possessed by the two groups about each other, as far as it concerns their beliefs and the meaning of their religious practices.

          The disputations of the first period are characterized by an extreme polemic on the part of both sides, but it is also a period of time in which both Jews and Christians knew more about the beliefs of their opponents in the dispute than they do in later times.  The early Church knew about the oral Torah (cf. The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, Pages 82-83) and some of the Fathers even quoted haggadic sources in their own writings.  St. Jerome in particular makes use of various oral traditions from Judaism and “speaks of these traditions as if they were a secret doctrine” [JE, vol. 4, p. 83].  But it is important to note that even when the Fathers quote such materials they do so while simultaneously emphasizing the human origin of such traditions, and they even develop attacks against the oral Torah by using the terminology of the Hellenistic Jews, only giving that terminology a different meaning.  Simon Marcel points out that the Greek speaking Jews of the Diaspora used the term deuterosis (repetition) for the oral Law, but that the early Christians re-interpreted the word giving it a disparaging definition.  For the Christians “. . . the meaning ‘repetition’ is lost sight of, and emphasis is laid on the word deuteros” [Bruce, 103], and he goes on to say that for Christians the term “Deuterosis . . . comes to mean that which is second, or secondary, from the point of view of both chronology and importance, as contrasted with the authentic Law of God, as it is written down in the Pentateuch and particularly in the Decalogue” [Bruce, 103]. 

          Thus, in the eyes of the early Christians the term “Deuterosis represents a mere human addition to Torah” [Bruce, 103].  Simon then shows that many of the rabbinic statements concerning the oral Torah are designed to attack this Christian viewpoint, because “They are intended not only to meet possible objections formulated by the pupils of the rabbis, but to establish the legitimacy of the Pharisaic position against adversaries who hold opposite views” [Bruce, 109].  Though as he points out the rabbis do not usually talk about the Christians by name it is evident that many of their attacks against the minim are directed against the Christians.  He says that this is particularly true when it comes to “. . . passages concerning the Law and its perennial validity, the election of Israel, monotheism and those who profess ‘another God’ . . . and [the validity of] oral tradition, mishnah, deuterosis” [Bruce, 110].  Simon also indicates that the basis for the early Christian attack on the oral Torah is most likely to be found in the Sadducean school of thought within Judaism itself, and that the Christians merely adapted the arguments of that school to suit their own purposes.   In the closing years of this period, “. . . the Church Fathers who lived after Jerome knew less and less of Judaism, and merely repeated the arguments that had been used by their predecessors” [JE, vol. 10, p. 104].

          By the thirteenth century the ecclesiastical hierarchy had only a superficial knowledge of Rabbinic Judaism and of the developments within the Jewish faith which had taken place in the years since the end of the patristic period.  These same authorities often misunderstood the statements of the Ancient Catholic Fathers concerning the Jewish rejection of the Christian mystical and typological interpretations of the biblical text, they thought that the Jews had rejected all mystical interpretation and could thus be properly called biblical literalists.  This Christian view of Jewish interpretation became problematic for the Jewish community when Nicholas Donin a convert from Judaism to Christianity attacked the Talmud.  Leonard Glick states that Donin “. . . had probably begun to challenge his elders and to reject Talmudic scholarship as a blemish on what he defined as authentic (that is, biblical) Judaism” [Glick, 193] around the year 1220.  Because of “his doubts as to the value of the oral tradition, he was in 1225 excommunicated by R. Jehiel (Yechiel) of Paris” [JE, vol. 4, p. 638], and “. . . for ten years lived in the state of excommunication, though still clinging to Judaism” [JE, vol. 4, p. 638], but he finally “became dissatisfied . . . with his position, and embraced Christianity” [JE, vol. 4, p. 638].  He now became a bitter opponent of Judaism and began to attack the rabbinical underpinnings of Jewish theology and practice.

          Donin’s disdain for the Talmud culminated in the year 1238 with his denouncing it in Rome before the Pope Gregory IX, to whom, he presented “a list of thirty-five charges against Rabbinic Judaism – that is, Judaism as it had been understood and practiced since the first century” [Glick, 196].  He accused the rabbis of holding the Talmud to be of greater value than the Torah; he also stated that the Talmud encouraged Jews to mistreat Christians; that it “insults and demeans the deity” [Glick, 194]; that it “libels and reviles not only Jesus and Mary, but the disciples, the pope, and the Christian faith, and teaches that obscene language is acceptable when applied to the Church” [Glick, 194]; and finally that the Talmud contains “tales, fables, and ordinances that are not only ridiculous but blasphemous” [Glick, 194].  These charges were investigated at a disputation held in the court of King Louis IX in June of 1240.

          Rabbi Jehiel (Yechiel) defended the Talmud against the majority of Donin’s accusations, those dealing with the treatment of Christians, the metaphorical language concerning God, and the fables, “which were obviously intended to be understood figuratively” [Glick, 199]; but he did experience difficulty when it came to the “most damaging charges . . . those having to do with insulting references to Jesus, Mary, and other New Testament figures” [Glick, 199] especially the one which declared “. . . that Jesus was condemned to an eternity in hell, immersed in ‘boiling excrement’” [Glick, 199].  Jehiel (Yechiel) defended the Talmud well, but was unable to “save twenty-four cartloads of copies of the Talmud from being consigned to the flames two years later in Paris” [JE, vol. 4, p. 616].  The truly amazing thing in all this is that  within a period of about twenty years the Church modified its position, the Dominican theologian Raymund Martin wrote a book entitled Pugio Fidei in which he “declared that many passages [of the Talmud] were confirmatory of the truth of Christianity, and that the Talmud should not be burned entirely” [JE, vol. 8, p. 351].  This re-evaluation of the Talmud led to a more selective form of censorship of the Rabbinic texts, only those texts which were found to be truly offensive were to be excised and the Rabbis eventually practiced a form of self-censorship in order to avoid further difficulties, an example of this occurred in the late fifteenth century when the Jews of Milan “. . . expurgated their prayer-books in order to anticipate the denunciations of the apostate Vicenzo” [JE, vol. 3, p. 647].  Though the vast majority of censorship which occurred during this period was done because it was ordered by Church authorities.

          During the first period of disputation both Jews and Christians used polemical attacks against their opponents, but they were generally friendly toward each other.  While it became evident at the beginning of the second period that this situation had changed, and this change was partially due to a lack of knowledge on the part of Church officials about the Jewish faith, and partially because of ingrained prejudice.  With the institution of the Inquisition the Church became less tolerant of divergent opinions and suppressed not only heretical Christian groups, but even began to pressure the Jewish community in a way that it had not done before the thirteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. F. Bruce and E. G. Rupp.  Holy Book and Holy Tradition.  (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968).

Leonard B. Glick.  Abraham’s Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe.  (New York:  Syracuse University Press, 1999).

The Jewish Encyclopedia.  (JE)

          Articles Cited:  

          Censorship, volume 3, pages 642-652.

          Church Fathers, volume 4, pages 80-86.

          Disputations, volume 4, pages 614-618.

          Nicholas Donin, volume 4, pages 638-639.

          Raymund Martin, volume 8, pages 351-352.

          Oral Law, volume 9, pages 423-426.

          Polemics, volume 10, pages 104-109.

Jewish / Christian Disputations

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Jewish Studies 320:  Jewish Historical Experience

Second Writing Assignment

Professor Fred Astren

12 October 1999

Copyright © 1999-2025 Steven Todd Kaster