Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 February 2016
During the Middle Ages, Christians largely accommodated themselves to the small number of Jews who lived amongst them. Augustine (354–430) explained that God had punished the Jews after their rejection of Jesus by destroying the Temple and sending them into exile. Their survival was divinely guaranteed, however, because the presence of the Jews, Augustine believed, testified to the authenticity of Scripture and the fulfillment of the prophecies upon which Christianity built its faith. The Jews themselves, of course, argued that God had never truly rejected his chosen people. By claiming the Jews as their witnesses, Christians inadvertently accepted the Jews' identity as the descendants of the biblical children of Israel.
1 Augustine, , City of God , trans. Bettenson, Henry (New York, 1986), 4.34, p. 178. I would like to thank the editors and referees of Traditio for their very helpful comments and criticisms, as well as the audiences at Hebrew University and Trinity College where earlier versions of this paper were delivered. Kaimowitz, Jeffrey Dr., the curator of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, also provided welcome assistance.Google Scholar
2 The literature on the Jewish sects is extensive. A good introduction with emphasis on the uncertainties of the research can be found in Porton, Gary G., “Diversity in Postbiblical Judaism,” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters , ed. Kraft, Robert A. and Nickelsburg, George W. E. (Philadelphia and Atlanta, 1986), 57–79. See also Cohen, Shaye J. D., From the Maccabees to the Mishna (Philadelphia, 1987), 124–73; Saldarini, Anthony J., Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Wilmington, Del., 1988); Baumgarten, Albert I., The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Leiden and New York, 1997); and the early work by Simon, Marcel, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia, 1967). On the Samaritans, see Purvis, James D., “The Samaritans and Judaism,” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, 81–98. And see the extensive discussions of the sects (over various articles) in the third volume of The Cambridge History of Judaism: The Early Roman Period , ed. Horbury, William, Davies, W. D., and Sturdy, John (Cambridge, 1999).Google Scholar
3 Cf. Cook, M. J., Mark's Treatment of the Jewish Leaders, Novum Testamentum Supplements, 51 (Leiden, 1978), cited in Porton, , “Diversity in Postbiblical Judaism,” 60: “It is unclear whether or not we can even speak of the scribes as a single organized class of Jews.” For a similar caution, see Gager, John, Origins of Anti-Semitism (Oxford, 1983), 146.Google Scholar
4 Matt. 12:14 and 22:15.Google Scholar
5 The Herodians appear as the allies of the Pharisees although it is not clear from the text if they constitute another distinct Jewish group: “And they sent unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words” (Mark 12:13).Google Scholar
6 Jewish War , trans. Williamson, G. A. (New York, 1985), 1.7, p. 133. On the idea of heresy, see Simon, Marcel, “From Greek Haeresis to Christian Heresy,” in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition , ed. Schoedel, William R. and Wilken, Robert L. (Paris, 1979), 101–16. See the comments by Patlagean, Évelene, “Byzance, le barbare, l'hérétique et la loi universelle,” in Ni Juif ni Grec. Entretiens sur le racisme , ed. Poliakov, L. (Paris, 1978), 81–90.Google Scholar
7 Jewish War , 1.7, p. 137: “The Pharisees handed down to the people certain regulations from the ancestral succession and not recorded in the laws of Moses, for which reason they are rejected by the Sadducean group, who hold that only those regulations should be considered valid which were written (in Scripture) and that those which had been handed down by the fathers need not be observed.” Google Scholar
8 Jewish War , 1.7, pp. 137–38.Google Scholar
9 Jewish War , 1.7, p. 133: “The Essenes profess a severer discipline; they are Jews by birth and are peculiarly attached to each other. They eschew pleasure-seeking as a vice and regard temperance and mastery of the passions as virtue.” His survey of their habits of dress, prayer, eating, ablutions, and communal governance runs for several pages in the Jewish War. Google Scholar
10 Cohen, , Maccabees to the Mishna , 164–66.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., 163.Google Scholar
12 Justin, , Dialogue with Trypho , in Saint Justin Martyr: The First Apology, The Second Apology, Dialogue with Trypho, Exhortation to the Greeks, Discourse to the Greeks, The Monarchy; or The Rule of God , trans. Falls, T. B., Fathers of the Church, 6 (New York, 1949), 276: “After careful examination, [one] would not acknowledge as Jews, the Sadducees or the similar sects of the Genistae, Meristae, Galileans, Hellenians, and the Baptist Pharisees (please take no offense if I speak my mind), but would realize that they are Jews and children of Abraham in name only, paying lip service to God, while their hearts (as God himself declared) are far from Him.” Justin tried to subvert the relationship between Jews and Abraham. See Siker, Jeffrey, Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy (Louisville, Ky., 1991), 189.Google Scholar
13 Baumgarten, Albert, “Josephus and Hippolytus on the Pharisees,” Hebrew Union College Annual 55 (1984): 8–9.Google Scholar
14 Hippolytus, , Refutation of All Heresies , in Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 , 5 (New York, 1911–26), 9.13, p. 134. Cf. Nautin, P., Hippolyte contre les hérésies (Paris, 1949).Google Scholar
15 Hippolytus, , Refutation of All Heresies , 9.13, p. 134: “For there is a division amongst them into three sorts; and the adherents of the first are the Pharisees, but of the second the Sadducees, while the rest are Essenes. These practice a more devotional life, being filled with mutual love, and being temperate.” Google Scholar
16 Hippolytus, , Refutation of All Heresies , 9.13, p. 134.Google Scholar
17 Baumgarten, , “Josephus and Hippolytus on the Pharisees,” 9.Google Scholar
18 Baumgarten cites similar comments in the works of Irenaeus (d. ca. 202) and Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215), which accused the Pharisees of manufacturing a false law in opposition to the law of God. See Baumgarten, , “Josephus and Hipploytus on the Pharisees,” 9. There is no indication that these two churchmen tried to link the Pharisees with all Jews.Google Scholar
19 For an account of Epiphanius's life and writings see Pourkier, A., L'hérésiologies chez Epiphane de Salamine (Paris, 1992); Maraval, P., “Epiphane, ‘docteur des iconoclastes,’” in Nicée II. Douze siècles d'images religieuses , ed. Boespflug, F. and Lossky, N. (Paris, 1987), 51–62; Young, Frances M., “Did Epiphanius Know What He Meant by Heresy?” Studia Patristica 17.1 (1982): 199–205; Lieu, Judith M., “Epiphanius on the Scribes and Pharisees (Pan. 15, 1–16, 4),” Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988): 509–24; Adler, William, “The Origins of the Proto-heresies. Fragments from a Chronicle in the First Book of Epiphanius' Panarion,” Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990): 472–501.Google Scholar
20 Panarion, 1.9.1–4, trans. Williams, Frank, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (Leiden, 1987), 29.Google Scholar
21 Ibid. Google Scholar
22 Simon, Marcel, “Les sectes juives chez les pères,” in Aland, Kurt and Cross, F. L., eds., Studia Patristica 1 (1957): 530. Judaism “n'est plus fait que d'une juxtaposition de sectes, d'hérésies hostiles les unes aux autres. Du judaïsme authentique aucune trace ne subsiste, puisque le pharisaïsme n'est qu'une de ces hérésies, une erreur entre beaucoup d'autres, et ceci dès avant l'intervention du christianisme.” Google Scholar
23 Philastrius, , Liber de haeresis , PL 12:1126. He finds a reference in Ezekiel, for example, to Jews who worship in caves: “Troglodytae qui ita dicuntur, in Judaeis, qui in speluncis habitantes abditis, idola colere non desinebant. …” Or, PL 12:1126–27: “Alia est haeresis in Judaeis, quae Reginam quam et Fortunam Coeli nuncupant, quam Coelestem vocant in Africa,” or PL 12:1131: “Haeresis est quoque in Judaeis, quae serpenti sacrificabat, et usque ad Ezechiam regem Judaeorum, eamdem impietatem celebrabat.” This last one takes as its point of origin the serpent that Moses set up in the camp (Num. 21:9).Google Scholar
24 Panarion , 1.19, p. 47.Google Scholar
25 Eusebius, , History of the Church , trans., Williamson, G. A. (New York, 1965).Google Scholar
26 Eusebius, , History of the Church , 4.22, p. 182.Google Scholar
27 Ibid. Google Scholar
28 Ibid. Google Scholar
29 Ibid: “From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and his Christ.” The Jewish sects became convenient whipping boys for Christians anxious about internal Christian heresies. Justin, for example, lashed out at Christian heretics who corrupted a true Christianity in the same way that Jewish sectarians had fragmented Judaism: “Moreover, I also informed you that there are some who are Christians in name [like the Jews who are Jewish in name only] but in reality are godless and impious heretics whose doctrines are entirely blasphemous, atheistic, and foolish” ( Dialogue with Trypho [ca. 80], 6, 276). Epiphanius's discussion of the four sects of the Samaritans and the seven sects of the Jews emphasizes the rebellious and illogical nature of the particular “heresy,” an attitude easily shifted to contemporary Christian challenges (Panarion, 1.19, p. 47).Google Scholar
30 Millar, Fergus, “The Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora Between Paganism and Christianity, AD 312–438,” in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire , ed. Lieu, Judith, North, John, and Rajak, Tessa (London and New York, 1992), 118–19.Google Scholar
31 Eusebius, , History of the Church , 4.22, p. 182.Google Scholar
32 The Didascalia Apostolorum, a third-century Greek treatise on pastoral theology now surviving in fourth-century Syriac and Latin translations, with fragments of the Greek contained in the Apostolic Constitutions (375), describes how Satan tried to tempt the Jews to sin and thus created the corrupt sects. With the destruction of the Temple and the rejection of the Jews, Satan turned his attention to creating heresy and discord in Christianity. See Connolly, R. Hugh, ed., Didascalia Apostolorum: The Syriac Version Translated and Accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments (Oxford, 1929), 23, 199.Google Scholar
33 See Cameron, Averil, “Texts as Weapons: Polemic in the Byzantine Dark Ages,” in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World , ed. Bownam, Alan K. and Woolf, Greg (Cambridge, 1994), 198–216; Allen, Pauline, “The Use of Heretics and Heresies in the Greek Church Historians. Studies in Socrates and Theodoret,” in Reading the Past in Late Antiquity , ed. Clarke, G. (Ruschcutters Bay, NSW, 1990), 264–89; Bauer, W., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia, 1971); le Boulluec, A., La notion d'hérésie dans la litterature grecque, IIe–IIIe siècle. Études augustiniennes (Paris, 1985); and Williams, R., “Does it Make Sense to Speak of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy?” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick , ed. Williams, R. (Cambridge, 1990), 1–23.Google Scholar
34 On the construction of the Jew in Christian polemic, see Markus, Robert A., “The Jew as Hermeneutic Device: The Inner Life of a Gregorian Topos,” in Gregory the Great: A Symposium , ed. Cavadini, John C. (Notre Dame and London, 1995), 1–16; Olster, David M., Roman Defeat, Christian Response, and the Literary Construction of the Jew (Philadelphia, 1994).Google Scholar
35 Cf. Augustine, who seems uninterested in heresies of the Jews. The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine , trans. and ed. Müller, L. (Washington, D.C., 1956). At the same time, Augustine seemed perfectly content to dismiss the complexities of Jewish religious life. In the City of God, he presented the Jews as a unified people: “And then again, the Hebrew race at the present time is not divided, but dispersed indiscriminately throughout the world, though united by association in the same error” (City of God, 17.7, p. 732).Google Scholar
36 “Duae haereses erant in Judaeis: una Pharisaeorum, altera Sadducaeorum” (Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 26:163).Google Scholar
37 Jerome rejected the idea that the Herodians were a real sect. He was particularly incensed by this belief and ridiculed it: “Certain of the Latins ludicrously assert that they [the Herodiani] are the ones who believed that Herod was the Christ, which is something we read nowhere.” For Jerome, these sectarians were not another cultic group but Herod's military retainers: “Herodianis, id est, militibus Herodis.” Jerome may have simply been reacting to the interplay between the historical context and narrative of the Gospel. It may have just made more sense for him to consider the Herodiani as the retainers of Herod and not devotees of a cult that proclaimed him to be the Christ. Again, the effect of Jerome's reading was to simplify further the sectarian divisions among the Jews (Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 23:164).Google Scholar
38 “quod Pharisaei a Judaeis divisi, propter quasdam observationes superfluas, nomen quoque a dissidio susceperunt. …” (Jerome, , Contra Luciferianos , PL 23:178).Google Scholar
39 “quantae traditiones pharisaeorum sint, quas hodie [deuteroseis] vocant, et quam aniles fabulae, revolvere nequeo” (Jerome, , Ep. , 21.10, PL 22:1034).Google Scholar
40 Baumgarten, , “Josephus and Hippolytus on the Pharisees,” 11.Google Scholar
41 Jerome, , Contra Luciferianos , PL 23:178: “Taceo de Judaismi hereticis, qui ante adventum Christi, legem traditam dissiparunt. …” Google Scholar
42 Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 23:168.Google Scholar
43 Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 26:78: “Scribae autem et Pharisaei, qui videbantur legis esse doctores, ex prophetarum vaticinio non potuerunt intelligere Salvatoris adventum.” There were other more favorable albeit muted opinions about the Pharisees. The Ps. Clementines, probably coming from a Jewish–Christian milieu, seemed neutral about the Pharisees, and reserved their animosity for the Sadducees. See Baumgarten, , “Josephus and Hippolytus on the Pharisees,” 13–14.Google Scholar
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45 Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 23:163 Google Scholar
46 Jerome, , Comm. in ep. ad Gal. , PL 26: 342–43.Google Scholar
47 “quod usque hodie Indi, Persae, et Babylonii faciunt,” Jerome, , Comm. in Matt. , PL 26:168.Google Scholar
48 On Isidore of Seville and Judaism see Albert, Bat Sheva, “Isidore of Seville: His Attitude toward Judaism and His Impact on Early Medieval Canon Law,” Jewish Quarterly Review 80 (1990): 207–20; Guenée, Bernard, Histoire et culture historique dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris, 1980); Riché, Pierre, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West , trans. Contreni, John J. (Columbia, S.C., 1976); and Fontaine, J., Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l'Espagne visigothique (Paris, 1950).Google Scholar
49 Isidore, , Etymologiae , 8.4 (PL 82: 297–98).Google Scholar
50 Ibid., 297: He notes that the Pharisees and Sadducees are opposed to each other, explaining that the word pharisaei in Latin means divisi, in the sense that the Pharisees are divided from the people “quasi per justitiam,” which seems to mean by the level of their observances. Sadducaei, on the other hand, means the just ones or iusti, even though they do not deserve the name for they reject the resurrection of the body and preach that the soul will be buried with the body. Isidore also notes that they accept the five books of the Law, but they reject the prophecies about Christ in the prophets. The Essenes are dispatched with one line that asserts that they claim that it was Christ who taught them every ritual of abstinence. There is an expanded list of heresies attributed to Isidore in one text that was not very well known in the Middle Ages. It is a slightly altered list originally attributed to Augustine. There is a published edition S. Isidori hispalensis episcopi De haeresibus liber (Madrid, 1940). I consulted a 1523 edition, Etymologiae. Contenta in hoc libello Ysidoras De sectis et [nominibus?] haereticorum …, in the Beinecke Library. In addition to listing standard heresies like the Arians, Gnostics, and others, the text resembles Philastrius's efforts to link heresies to various Old Testament figures such as Melchesidek. The text concludes with a warning about the innumerable number of heresies that exist, often without any names.Google Scholar
51 Isidore, , Etymologiae , 8.4 (PL 82: 297–98).Google Scholar
52 “Judaei confessores interpretantur. Multos enim ex iis sequitur confessio, quos antea perfidia possidebat.,” Isidore, , Etymologiae , 8.4 (PL 82:297).Google Scholar
53 Ibid.: “… transitores, quo nomine admonentur ut de pejoribus ad meliora transeant, et pristinos errores relinquant.” Google Scholar
54 “Et cum esset magnus, prophetam se dicebat. …” (Bede, , Super Acta Apostolorum , PL 92:956).Google Scholar
55 “Sed dum volunt et Judaei esse et Christiani, nec Judaei sunt nec Christiani” (ibid., PL 92:990).Google Scholar
56 Bede, , In S. Joannis Evangelium Expositio , PL 92:681.Google Scholar
57 Ibid., PL 92:530.Google Scholar
58 Ibid., PL 92:781: “Non omnes ex Judaeis qui convenerant ad Mariam, crediderunt, sed tamen multi.” Google Scholar
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62 Maurus, Hrabanus, Commentarium in Matthaeum libri octo , PL 107:1059. Interestingly, Hrabanus also preserves a more traditional list of six Jewish heresies: “Pharisaeorum, Sadducaeorum, Esnaeistarum, Marbonensium, Genistarum, Meristaeorum.” He then adds the Samaritae and the Hemerobaptistae. See De Clericorum Institutione, PL 107:371–72.Google Scholar
63 Hrabanus, , In Matt. , PL 107:1071. “Fermentum Pharisaeorum est decreta legis divinae traditionibus hominum postponere.” Google Scholar
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65 For some general comments on Druthmar, see Laistner, M. L. W., “A Ninth-Century Commentator on the Gospel According to Matthew,” Harvard Theological Review 20 (1927): 129–49.Google Scholar
66 Druthmar, , Expositio in Matthaeum Evangelistam , PL 106:1337.Google Scholar
67 “Nam in ipsa captivitate, in populo Judaeorum, multi exstiterunt heresiarchae, qui se Christos esse dicerent” (Radbertus, Paschasius, Expositio in Evangelium Matthaei , PL 120:376).Google Scholar
68 Ibid., PL 120:774.Google Scholar
69 See, for example, Dunbabin, Jean, “The Maccabees as Exemplars in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley , ed. Walsh, Katherine and Wood, Diana (London, 1985), 31–41.Google Scholar
70 Radbertus, , In Matt. , PL 120:774.Google Scholar
71 Ibid., PL 120:830.Google Scholar
72 “Duae sectae erant in Judaea, Pharisaeorum et Saducaeorum, et tamen omnes erant Judaei” (Druthmar, , In Matt. , PL 106:1442). He compared the two sects to the divisions in the society of his own day. Just as Christians have monks and canons, and are all Franks; so too were the Pharisees and the Sadducees all Jews (“et sicut inter nos sunt monachi et canonici, et tamen de una gente Francorum sunt, similiter erant apud ipsos”).Google Scholar
73 “Pharisaei Judaicum populum significant” (Druthmar, , In Matt. , PL 106:1508). Bruno of Segni (ca. 1048–1123) echoes Druthmar: “Phariseus iste Judeorum populus est.” (Comm. in Luc., PL 165:379).Google Scholar
74 The Pharisaic quality of Judaism did not completely efface the sense of Judaism as made up of individual heresies. Honorius of Autun (ca. 1080–ca. 1156) follows Isidore and lists eight heresies of the Jews ( Liber de Haeresibus , PL 172: 233–40). Roger Bacon (1214?–94), for example, turned to the heresies of the Jews to emphasize the heretical fragmentation of Christianity: “The difference among the heretics has no limits. Similarly among the Jews; for some were Pharisees, some Sadducees, and others differing from both, as the Gospels teach, and Josephus makes clear in his books of Antiquities” (The Opus Majus of Roger Bacon , trans. Burke, Robert Belle, 2 vols. [Philadelphia, 1928], 1:803). Similarly, Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica preserved a sense of the tripartite division of the Jews. “Erant autem in Judaea tres sectae Judaeorum, a communi reliquorum vita et opinione distantes, Pharisaei, Sadducaei, Essaei” (PL 198:1552). On Comestor see Morey, James H., “Peter Comestor, Biblical Paraphrase, and the Medieval Popular Bible,” Speculum 68 (1993): 6–35, and Luscombe, David, “Peter Comestor,” in The Bible in the Medieval World, 109–29.Google Scholar
75 For a discussion of the gloss, see Signer, Michael A., “The Glossa Ordinaria and the Transmission of Medieval Anti-Judaism” in A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle, O. P. , ed. Brown, Jacqueline and Stoneman, William P. (Notre Dame, 1997), 591–92.Google Scholar
76 “… et populus Judaicus intervenit, et lex, quae populis fuit quasi maceriae divisio, quia primum populum fidelem et ultimum qui sub adventu Christi fuit, evisit, et quasi se in medio interposuit. Unde Phares dicitur Judaicus populus, id est divisio. Sed Christus ilium populum interpositum et legem destruxit, et maceriam divisam utriusque populi fidelis conjunxit, id est aedificationem” (Anselm of Laon, Enarrationes in Evangelium Matthaei, PL 162:1239). Anselm also records the traditional interpretation of divisio — “id est, divisi, ab aliis” (PL 162:1263).Google Scholar
77 By isolating the Pharisees from the Israelites, Christians could use the Pharisees as a rhetorical weapon against their own internal enemies. Jerome, for example, lashed out at certain clerics as Pharisees: “Istum locum episcopi et presbyteri non intellegentes, aliquid sibi de Pharisaeorum assumunt supercilio, ut vel damnent innocentes, vel solvere noxios arbitrentur. …” (In Matt., PL 26:118). Gregory the Great vented his frustrations with cloistered monks by comparing them to Pharisees. They seem to have the same tonsures, clothes, speech, and fasts. (“Vae nobis, ad quos vitia Pharisaeorum pervenerunt. Unia in tonsura, et veste religionis, et oratione labiorum, et jejuniis et vigiliis quibusdam nos quasi bonos ostendimus.”) See Gregory, , Ad opera S. Gregorii Appendices. Appendix prima, II, fragmentum expositionis in Matthaeum , cited in Watt, J. A., “Dante, Boniface VIII and the Pharisees,” in Post Scripta: Essays on Medieval Law and the Emergence of the European State in Honor of Gaines Post , ed. Strayer, Joseph R. and Queller, Donald E., Studia Gratiana, 15 (Rome, 1972), 204. Peter the Venerable (1092–1156) also taunted the Cistercians for being a new type of Pharisee who kept themselves apart from all other people: “O, Pharisaeorum novum genus, rursus mundo redditum! Qui se a caeteris dividentes, omnibus praeferentes, dicunt quod propheta dicturos eos praedixit: Noli me tangere, quoniam mundus sum” (Peter the Venerable, Epistola, 1.28, PL 189:116, cited in Watt, “Pharisees,” 203 n. 1).Google Scholar
78 See Van Engen, John, “Ralph of Flaix: The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Christian Community,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe , ed. Signer, Michael A. and Van Engen, John (Notre Dame, 2001), 150–71. Signer points out that as part of the gloss's interest in heightening anti-Jewish sentiment for homiletic reasons, Christians could read the Pharisees back into the Israelite past. See his elegant study of the gloss's representation of Joseph's brothers as the Pharisees: Signer, “The Glossa Ordinaria and the Transmission of Medieval Anti-Judaism,” 596–99. In this case, the goal of allegorically understanding the Joseph story (with Joseph as Christ) seems to have overwhelmed the need to see the patriarchs as free of any Pharisaical corruption.Google Scholar
79 “Fuerunt et boni Pharisaei, scilicet Aaron, et filii ejus … “ (Rupert of Deutz, De Trinitate et operibus ejus , PL 167:1556). Rupert also considers the scribes to have been a continuous lineage of Jews, if not a sect: “Fuerunt enim in illis scribae boni, videlicet quorum Moyses et Esdras optimi.” Google Scholar
80 Southern, Richard, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, 1953) 232–40.Google Scholar