¹ This is the form used in recent Spanish historical literature: the customary ‘Pablo Christiani’ is an impossible hybrid.

² Except perhaps in a single phrase, towards the end: ‘et esset pluries publice confusus.’

³ In some cases the verbal correspondence is remarkable: e.g. the Hebrew phrase ץךאבש ןרע ןגנ renders literally the Latin in paradiso terrestri.

⁴ [Neubauer-] Renan, Les Rabbins Français du commencement du quatorzième siècle, pp. 562–571.

⁵ Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos, p. 244.

⁶ Revue des Etudes Juives, lxxxii, 363–378.

⁷ There is an excellent treatment of Nahmanides' life and teachings in Schechter's Studies in Judaism, i, 120–172, a German monograph by H. Chone, and a recent biographical sketch in Hebrew by I. Unna. He had been in amicable relations with Jaime before the Disputation: see Régné, Catalogue (below, note 33), no. 137 — grant by the King of certain revenues to Bonastrug de Porta, Master of the Jews of Gerona.

⁸ This is referred to briefly in the Latin protocol, and in some detail in Nahmanides' account of his discussion with the Christian protagonists in Synagogue after the disputation.

⁹ This is the only date given in the Latin protocol, which however does not indicate that the discussions lasted over more than one day: it is generally assumed therefore to be that of the opening session. This was a Friday, not a Monday as indestated by Loeb (Revue des Etudes Juives, xv. 4–5). The second session, held according to Nahmanides on the following Monday, was therefore on July 23rd, and not as Loeb says on the 27th; the third on Thursday, 26th July, not the 30th; and the fourth on Friday, 27th July, not the 31st. Other texts of the account indeed give the days of the last three sessions as Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in which case a slight adjustment is to be made; but, since Nahmanides explicitly states that he remained in Barcelona for eight days after the close of the Disputation, in order to be present in Synagogue on the following Saturday week, the last session must have been on a Friday. In any case, Loeb's reckoning, followed by all later writers (and used as the basis for various complicated arguments which fundamentally affect the veracity of the story) is incorrect.

¹⁰ It is almost certain, but is nowhere stated explicitly, that the Dominican scholar Ramón Marti (Raymondo Martini), whose name is of such importance in the subsequent history of Judaeo-Christian controversy (see below), was also present. For Penyafort's participation, see F. Vals Taberna, San Ramón de Penyafort, Barcelona 1940, pp. 131–139.

¹¹ See my article, The Medieval Conception of the Jew; a new Interpretation, in Miller, LindaMemorial volume, New York, 1938Google Scholar; the point has since been developed further by Trachtenberg, J., The Devil and the Jews, New Haven, 1943Google Scholar.

¹² Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos, p. 247.

¹³ This was one of Christiá's more specious arguments (though he was badly confused about the dates, as will be seen), but was based on an utter misunderstanding. The ceremony of Ordination practised in Talmudic times, which fell in abeyance with the decay of the Palestinian Jewish centre in the fifth century, conferred judicial powers, and had little to do with rabbinical functions in the modern sense.

¹⁴ The correct reading is given by Millás in Anales de la Universidad de Barcelona, 1940, p. 29.

¹⁵ This curious reckoning is imposed by the confused Rabbinical legends according to which Jesus was a pupil of R. Joshua ben Perahia. This same alibi was used in the Disputation of Paris.

¹⁶ The Latin protocol sums up this brush: concessit Christum sive Messiam, iam sunt transacti M (!) anni, natum in Bethlehem fuisse et exinde Romam aliquibus aparuisse. There is no mention of Bethlehem in Nahmanides' report, but in fact the place figures in the Midrashic legend, and his omission may have been intentional.

¹⁷ Published by Neubauer [and Driver] in The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah according to Jewish Interpreters (Oxford 1876) i. 75–81 (Translation in vol: ii) and by Steinschneider in appendix to his edition of the Disputation.

¹⁸ Here the disputants touched incidentally upon the third topic of the agenda according to the Latin protocol (the sufferings of the Messiah), which was not formally discussed.

¹⁹ One MS. reads Sunday (this would perhaps explain why the session took place in a monastery): there is a similar discrepancy as regards the following sessions, as has been pointed out.

²⁰ Schechter, ut supra, p. 128, elaborates this point, not too clearly expounded in Nahmanides' account of the Controversy, from a parallel in his work on the Time of the Redemption. (Ketz haGeulah) — then unpublished, now ed. J. Lipschitz, London 1909.

²¹ For a more or less systematic exposition of Nahmanides' views on this subject, based to a great extent on his account of the Disputation, see Sarachek, J., The Doctrine of the Messiah in Medieval Jewish Literature (New York, 1932), pp. 162–169Google Scholar; the point is dealt with more succinctly in Lukyn Williams' summary treatment of the same subject in his Adversus Judaeos, chapter xxv (see in particular p. 246). Baer, however (in the article cited in the Bibliography, supra), points out that Nahmanides was guilty here of a contradiction, since at the beginning of the controversy he had agreed that precisely this question, whether or no the Messiah had come, was one of the fundamental subjects to be discussed.

²² So both the Hebrew account and the Latin (which infers from this that the Rabbi admitted that, if it could be proved that the Messiah had come, he could not be other than Jesus). It is extraordinary that he did not recall the Messianic pretensions of Bar Kochba, recorded in the Talmud, or more recent claimants such as those mentioned by Maimonides in his Epistle to the Yemen. This curious absence of historical perspective is characteristic, though of the age rather than of the person.

²³ The passage is to be found in Tanhuma, ed. Buber, Genesis, p. 139: but the disputants may have cited it from the mysterious Bereshith Rabbathi of Moses ha-Darshan of Narbonne; see S. Lieberman in his Shekiin [on the sources of Martini's Pugio Fidei], p. 79, and in Historia Judaica, v. 92; and Albeck in his appendix to Baer's article on the same subject from the contrary point of view in the Memorial Volume to Asher Gulak and S. Klein, p. 49, which should be taken in conjunction with Zunz's note, Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, ed. 1892, p. 303 [and now with A. Díaz Macho, Los midrasim de Raimundo Martí, in Sefarad, ix, 165–196].

²⁴ Nahmanides reverts to this point more than once. It was apparently the usual belief at the time, and in 1280 the mystic Abraham Abulafia actually acted upon it, attempting to present himself before Nicholas III to demand the release of the Jews from their captivity. (I do not think that he was necessarily influenced by the views expressed at Barcelona, which without doubt reflected prevailing opinions.)

²⁵ Cf. Pesikta Rabbathi ed. Friedmann, p. 161^b § 36: Midrash on Proverbs.

²⁶ Nahmanides devoted a separate treatise, Ketz haGeulah (see above) to this subject: cf. also L. I. Epstein, The Eschatology of Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, in Students' Annual of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1914, pp. 95–123.

²⁷ See Derekh Eretz Zutta, cap: 1, ad fin; Aleph-Beth of Ben Sira, ed. Berlin, p. 36^b. But an exact source cannot be traced.

²⁸ I do not think with the latest editor (A. Shochet: 1947) that this passage is purely fanciful. It seems to link up with the point just mentioned, and follows another completely authentic allusion to the Disputation of Barcelona, which is however stated to have taken place in the presence of King Pedro (not Jaime). Perhaps these details may be derived from an independent account, now lost.

²⁹ Cf. Midrash to Psalms, xviii.36.

³⁰ This passage is omitted in the older editions of the Hebrew text.

³¹ According to the accepted accounts, the discussions now ended. But there is extant a Hebrew composition of Nahmanides (published Prague 1595; Warsaw 1837; Leipzig 1853) demonstrating the choice of Israel and the immutability of the Torah — virtually, that is, the item of the agenda that was omitted in the public disputation — delivered before the King and his court in Saragossa. There is in the Hebrew account of the Disputation no reference to this episode, which must therefore almost certainly have taken place later. Unfortunately, the work contains no indication whatsoever of the date or other circumstances. But it seems reasonable to deduce that, some time between 1263 and 1267 (more probably between August 1263 and April 1265: see below) Nahmanides was at court again, and was invited to give an exposition of his views on the aspect that had not been dealt with in the Disputation. This might perhaps explain the renewal of the Dominican acerbity against him.

³² See above for a résumé of this.

³³ J. Régné, Catalogue des Actes de Jaime Ier … concernant les Juifs, § 319: the other official documents that will be cited below are in the same collection, first published in the Revue des Etudes Juives, 1910–11. Some of them are printed in full in F. de Bofarull y Sans, Jaime I y los Judíos, in Congrés d'història de la Corona d'Aragó dedicat a l'alt rei En Jaume I i la seva època (also published separately, Barcelona, 1911).

³⁴ See above, note 31.

³⁵ The date is not given, but it figures in the Archives of the Crown of Aragon between documents of August 28th and August 30th.

³⁶ The printed text has Soffrim, which is obviously a misreading. It seems that separate codices of this treatise were believed to — and perhaps did — exist.

³⁷ Régné, op. cit., nos. 212, 215, 216 (28th–29th August 1263). It seems as though the new regulations were applied at the outset with unnecessary ferocity, as on August 30th the King issued another edict enjoining moderation in the treatment of the Jews and forbidding violence to be brought to bear by the Preachers: ibid., no. 217.

³⁸ Ibid., no. 249 (27th March 1264). A little less than a year later, probably as the result of a heavy payment by the Jews, the Censorship was abolished, at least for Barcelona: ibid., no. 318.

³⁹ See the full text in F. de Bofarull y Sans, Jaime I y los Judíos, pp. 67–8: synopsis in Régné, op. cit., no. 323.

The sequence of events at this time is confused by the fact that almost simultaneously the King had to deal with the case of a Jew of Villafranca de Panades named Astrug de Porta (Nahmanides is called in the records of Bonastruc de Porta!) brother of the royal bailiff, Benveniste de Porta, who was similarly charged with having blasphemed Christianity in the course of discussions (disputando does not I take it signify ‘in the course of a disputation’ as has sometimes been inferred). On May 29th, 1264, the sentence of exile which had been passed on him for this offence was annulled, in return for an outright money-payment: and this was confirmed in the following February, when he also was given a safe conduct. (Regne, op. cit., nos. 262, 315, 316; Bofarull y Sans, op. cit., pp. 60, 65, where the full texts are given. For this episode, cf. J. Millás Vallicrosa, Un error en la biografia de Mosse ben Nahman de Gerona in Estudis Universitaris Catalans, x. 194 ff.)

⁴⁰ Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum § 19911.

⁴¹ Fray Pablo ultimately recrossed the Pyrenees to continue his propaganda. In 1269, St. Louis, King of France, issued instructions that the Jews should be compelled to listen to his sermons. In 1269–70, he was responsible for the renewal of the edict imposing the wearing of the Jewish Badge of Shame in France, and for an outbreak of Inquisitional activity against the Jews of Provence. Here he forced a religious discussion upon R. Mordecai ben Jehosaphah, who composed in consequence a work, Mehazek heEmunah (‘Strengthening of Faith’), which apparently resulted in his imprisonment. Fray Pablo subsequently continued his propaganda (it may be that he was that convert, designated, however, as a Cordelier, who forced a disputation on Abraham ben Solomon of Dreux and other Rabbis, under the auspices of Philip le Hardi, at Paris in 1273), and died in 1274 in Taormina (Sicily) or Tormon (Spain): cf. Shevet Jehudah, ed. Shochet, p. 148; (Neubauer-) Renan, Les Rabbins français, pp. 563–5; Jewish Quarterly Review, iii. 216; Gross, Gallia Judaica, pp. 4–5.