Appropriation, Interpretation and Criticism: Philosophical and Theological Exchanges Between the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Intellectual Traditions

Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales TEXTES ET ÉTUDES DU MOYEN ÂGE, 88

APPROPRIATION, INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM: PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL EXCHANGES BETWEEN THE ARABIC, HEBREW AND LATIN INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS

NNNCUON Edited by Alexander Fidora and Nicola Polloni

Barcelona - Roma 2017 Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales TEXTES ET ÉTUDES DU MOYEN ÂGE, 88

APPROPRIATION, INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM:

PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL EXCHANGES BETWEEN THE ARABIC, HEBREW AND LATIN INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS

Edited by

Alexander FIDORA and Nicola POLLONI

Barcelona - Roma 2017

ISBN: 978-2-503-57744-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Preface VII Sarah PESSIN: Ibn Gabirol’s Emanationism: On the Plotinian (v. Augustinian) Theology of «Divine Irāda» 1 Nicola POLLONI: Toledan Ontologies: Gundissalinus, Ibn Daud, and the Problem of Gabirolian Hylomorphism 19 Pedro MANTAS-ESPAÑA: Interpreting the New Sciences: Beyond the Completion of the Traditional Liberal Arts Curriculum 51 Vincenzo CARLOTTA: La morte e la resurrezione dei corpi nel Dia- logo dei filosofi e di Cleopatra e nel Liber de compositione alchemiae di Morieno 93 Alexander FIDORA: Albert the Great and the Latin Talmud 121 Marienza BENEDETTO: Alle origini della controversia medievale sulla pluralità delle forme sostanziali: il Fons vitae di Avicebron 137 Therese SCARPELLI CORY: Reditio completa, reditio incompleta: Aquinas and the Liber de causis, prop. 15, on Reﬂ exivity and Incorporeality 185 Chiara CRISCIANI: Il Secretum secretorum in Occidente: tre casi 231 Mauro ZONTA: Averroes’ Interpretations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Their Different Receptions in the Hebrew Philosophical Tradition 261 Aum Alexandre SHISHMANIAN: Bagdad, Paris, Lemberg, Etchmiadzin (Arménie), la trajectoire inattendue du Livre des causes 279 Massimo CAMPANINI: Filosoﬁ a e Corano: un percorso ermeneutico tra ontologia e fenomenologia 303 Index nominum antiquorum et mediaevalium 325 Index nominum modernorum 329 ALEXANDER FIDORA*

ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD

More than one and a half centuries ago, Manuel Joël noted the presence of Talmudic motifs and quotations in Albert the Great’s oeuvre. Yet he did not interpret these passages in terms of Albert’s possible acquaintance with the Talmud, for it seemed to the erudite Jewish scholar impossible that Albert, had he been familiar with this corpus of rabbinic wisdom, would have supported the ﬁ nal sentence on the Talmud issued in 1248 by Odo of Châteauroux. Instead, Joël suggested that Albert’s allusions to and quotations from the Talmud were most likely drawn from other Jewish sources, in particular Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed1. At the beginning of the last century, Jacob Guttmann examined in more detail the inﬂ uence of Jewish authors and texts on Albert in his seminal work on thirteenth-century scholasticism and its reception of the Jewish philosophical and theological tradition. Regarding the Talmud, he drew attention to two instances in Albert’s works where the Doctor universalis explicitly mentions the Talmud: once in his commentary on the Sentences, and a second time in his commentary on Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite’s Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Yet, as Joël did before, he immediately ruled out any familiarity on Albert’s part with the Talmud, maintaining that his knowledge of the Talmud, as a member of the 1248 commission headed by Odo, was biased through Nicholas Donin’s infamous articles against

* ICREA – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, MRA, E-08193 Bellaterra, alexander.ﬁ [email protected]. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement n° 613694 (CoG: “The Latin Talmud”). I wish to thank Ann Giletti for her comments on my paper. 1 Cf. M. JOËL, Verhältniss Albert des Grossen zu Moses Maimonides. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, Verlag der Schletter’schen Buchhandlung, Breslau 1863, p. XIV, n. 1: «Es kommt wiederholentlich vor, dass Albert unwissentlich die Talmudisten citirt. [...] Man kann sich hier des Gedankens nicht erwehren, dass ein so wissensdurstiger Mann, wie Albert war, schwerlich seinen Namen unter das Verbrennungsdecret, das in Paris 1248 auf Antrag des päpstlichen Legaten Odo über einige Bücher, die „Talmud heissen”, erlassen wurde, gesetzt haben würde, wenn er den Talmud gekannt und geahnt hätte, dass es ihm leicht begegnen konnte, mit derselben Feder den Talmud zu verurtheilen und als Autorität zu citiren». 122 ALEXANDER FIDORA

the Talmud, which the Jewish convert had submitted to Pope Gregory IX in 1238-12392. At the same time, he claimed that many of the references to the rabbinic authorities in Albert’s texts derived from his reading of Maimonides and his Dux neutrorum, and that he quoted them in one breath with Maimonides as philosophical authorities. As to the Talmud itself, Guttmann assumes Albert’s «total ignorance» («völlige Unkenntniss») of the text3. While scholarship on Albert the Great has made considerable progress since the publication of these pioneering works, this interpretation has gone almost unquestioned. Thus, Caterina Rigo in her study on Albert and Maimonides in 2001 still subscribed to Guttmann’s (and Joël’s) thesis, according to which Albert’s quotations from the Talmud should be read in the context of his interest in Maimonides. At the same time, she tried to further identify some of Albert’s references to the Talmud with Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations against the Talmud4. Only recently has the question on ‘Albert and the Talmud’ received a fresh turn with Irven M. Resnick’s article on «Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great». In this study, Resnick afﬁ rms that Albert must have been acquainted with the Talmud either through Nicholas Donin, or through Odo of Châteauroux, «or perhaps from the synopses of Talmudic errors composed […] for Odo

2 J. GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts in ihren Beziehungen zum Judenthum und zur jüdischen Literatur, Verlag von M. & H. Marcus, Breslau 1902, pp. 48-49: «Allein vermuthlich dienten ihm [sc. Albert], wie den anderen Mitgliedern der Kommission, als einzige Grundlage für ihr Urtheil die von dem Apostaten Nicolaus Donin erhobenen Anklagen wider den Talmud, denn von irgendwelcher Bekanntschaft mit dem Talmud, den ich bei ihm nur zweimal erwähnt gefunden habe, zeigt sich in seinen Schriften auch nicht die geringste Spur». See also p. 49, n. 1, where Guttmann points to a similarity between Albert’s Talmud quotation from the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and the Paris Disputation (1240). 3 Ibid., pp. 49-50: «An einigen Stellen ﬁ nden wir bei Albert in Verbindung mit Rabbi Maimonides auch gewisse Namen erwähnt, die wie Rabbi Elieser oder Heliazar, Rabbi Joanna und Rabbi Josue der talmudischen Literatur angehören. Aber gerade aus diesen Stellen geht seine völlige Unkenntniss des Talmuds hervor, denn diese talmudischen Autoritäten, deren Namen er bei Maimonides begegnet ist, werden von ihm in einer Weise angeführt, als ob sie Philosophen wären». 4 Cf. C. RIGO, «Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus Magnus», in W. SENNER (ed.), Albertus Magnus. Zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren: Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, pp. 29-66, at p. 63. ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 123 of Tusculum [sc. de Châteauroux]»5. However, he attenuates this view, concluding that «in the end, it may be impossible to identify the source of Albert’s information on the Talmud». More optimistic than that, I believe that it is actually possible to identify with precision Albert’s source as the «synopsis» that Resnick mentions, known as the Extractiones de Talmud 6. The ongoing edition of this Latin Talmud translation from 1244/45 offers us the opportunity to revisit the question of Albert’s access to the Talmud, basing ourselves on a corpus of almost two-thousand Talmudic passages, extant in at least ten Latin and one Hebrew manuscripts7. Thus, in what follows, I shall analyze the two above-mentioned passages from Albert’s commentary on the Sentences and his commentary on the pseudo- Areopagite in the light of the Latin Talmud corpus, along with a third reference to the Talmud that occurs in Albert’s commentary on the Gospel of Saint Matthew and which has also been discussed in the literature.

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Though the passage from Albert’s commentary on the Gospel of Saint Matthew dates to the years 1257-1264 and is therefore considerably later than the passages from his commentaries on the Sentences and the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, written during the 1240s, I shall start the discussion with the commentary on Matthew, since it addresses the Talmud in more general terms.

5 I. M. RESNICK, «Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great», Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 33 (2002) 69-86, at p. 73. 6 Also hinted at by G. K. HASSELHOFF, Dicit Rabbi Moyses. Studien zum Bild von Moses Maimonides im lateinischen Westen vom 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004, p. 74, n. 63. 7 On the edition project, see A. FIDORA, «The Latin Talmud and Its Inﬂ uence on Christian-Jewish Polemic», Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies, 1/2 (2014) 337-342; for a critical appraisal of the date and authorship of the Talmud translation, ID., «The Latin Talmud and Its Translators: Thibaud de Sézanne vs. Nicholas Donin?», Henoch. Historical and Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Judaism and Christianity, 37/1 (2015) 17-28; and for an up-dated survey of the manuscript tradition, ID., «Die Handschrift 19b des Arxiu Capitular de Girona: Ein Beitrag zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des lateinischen Talmud», in C. ALRAUM – A. HOLNDONNER – H.-CH. LEHNER et al. (eds.), Zwischen Rom und Santiago. Festschrift für Klaus Herbers zum 65. Geburtstag, Winkler, Bochum 2016, pp. 49-56. 124 ALEXANDER FIDORA

In this text, commenting upon the Sermon on the Mount, in particular verses 5,43-44, Albert states that in the Jewish tradition («in suis traditionibus») hate of the enemy was considered a divine commandment («praeceptum divinum»). Thus he maintains that this commandment, though it was not included in the written Law of the Jews, was, nonetheless, part of their oral Law. To this he adds the following clariﬁ cation concerning the two Laws which the Jews say they have received from God:

Dicebant enim Rab Vasse et Rab Iosua et Rab Iohanna et alii scribae, quod deus dedit duplicem legem, unam scriptam in lapidibus et aliam scriptam in cordibus sapientium. Et in illa, quae scripta erat in cordibus sapientium, unum mandatum arguebatur ex alio […]8

Accordingly, the Jews received two Laws, one being the stone-written ten commandments of the Hebrew Bible, the other one the Talmud which the wise men carried in their hearts and transmitted orally from generation to generation. While in the above-mentioned study Jacob Guttmann stressed that this quotation has no immediate precedent in the Talmudic literature9, Caterina Rigo pointed to several Talmudic texts assembled by Nicholas Donin in his list of accusations against the Talmud10. The ﬁ rst of these is Nicholas’ rendering of Yoma 28b:

Dicit Rab: ‘Afﬁ rmavit Abraham pater noster totam legem, sicut scriptum est: Quia audivit vocem meam et custodivit custodiam

8 Albertus Magnus, Super Matthaeum. Capitula I-XIV, ed. B. SCHMIDT, Aschendorff, Münster i. W. 1987, p. 160 (Ed. Colon., 21/1). English translation: «Rav Vasse, Rav Ioshua and Rav Johanan, as well as other scribes, say that God gave two Laws, one which is written on stone and a second one which is in the hearts of the wise men. And regarding the Law that is in the hearts of the wise men, one commandment is derived from the other […]». 9 See GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, where he assures pp. 50-51, n. 1 that this passage is «ohne irgendeinen Anhaltspunkt in der talmudisch- rabbinischen Literatur». 10 Cf. RIGO, «Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus Magnus», p. 63, n. 184. Though Caterina Rigo refers repeatedly to the Extractiones de Talmud, she is not quoting the Extractiones but Nicholas’ list of errors, which is contained along with the Extractiones in the Parisian manuscript BnF, Ms. lat. 16558 (Schmidt’s apparatus is at the origin of this confusion). ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 125

meam, consuetudines meas et leges meas (Gn 26,5)’. Et infra: Dicit Rab Asse: ‘Tenuit Abraham pater noster commixtiones coquinarum’. Glosa: ‘Quae non erant dandae per Moysen in Syna, sed per scribas instituendae, sicut dictum est: Leges meas, duas leges, unam de verbis legis, et unam de verbis scribarum’11.

This text hints at a twofold Law, though it does not establish a clear distinction between written and unwritten Law. The same is true for the second passage noted by Caterina Rigo, namely Berakhot 5a, the Latin translation of which reads:

Dicit Rby Levy: ‘Quid est quod scriptum est: Et dabo tibi tabulas lapideas et legem ac mandata quae scripsi ad docendum ea (Ex 24,12)? Tabulas lapideas, i.e. legem; legem, i.e. Mysna; mandata, i.e. consuetudines et praecepta; quae, i.e. iudices; scripsi, i.e. Mykara, historiographa et prophetas, ad docendum ea, i.e. Talmud; docens quod omnia ista fuerunt halaka, lectio, Moysi in Syna’12.

While both these texts do not draw an explicit distinction between written and unwritten Law, there are other passages in Nicholas’ list which do mention this distinction, such as Shabbat 31a, where the answer

11 Nicholas’ list is contained on folios 211va-217vb of the Parisian manuscript BnF, Ms. lat. 16558. Edition by I. LOEB, «La controverse de 1240 sur le Talmud», Revue des études juives, 2 (1881) 248-270 and ibid., 3 (1881) 39-57, here no. 2, p. 253 (= f. 211va of the manuscript). English translation in J. FRIEDMAN – J. C. HOFF – R. CHAZAN, The Trial of the Talmud: Paris, 1240, PIMS, Toronto 2012, pp. 102-103: «Rav says: ‘Our father Abraham afﬁ rmed the whole law, as it is written: Because he listened to my voice and kept my safeguard, my statutes and my laws (Gn 26,5)’. And later: Rav Ashi says: ‘Our father Abraham kept [even] the mixing of dishes’. Gloss: ‘These laws were not given through Moses on Sinai but were instituted by the scribes, as it is said, my laws – two laws – one from the words of the Law and one from the words of the scribes’». 12 LOEB, «La controverse de 1240 sur le Talmud», no. 2, p. 254 (= f. 211vb of the manuscript). English translation in FRIEDMAN – HOFF – CHAZAN, The Trial of the Talmud, p. 103: «Rabbi Levi says: ‘What does it mean which is written: And I will give you tablets of stone and a law and commandments which I have written that you may teach them (Ex 24,12)? Tablets of stone i.e. the Law; a law i.e. the Mishnah; the commandments i.e. statutes and injunctions; which i.e. judges; I have written i.e. the Mikra (the prophets and the hagiographa); that you may teach them i.e. the Talmud; this teaches that all these things were halakha (a teaching) to Moses on Sinai’». 126 ALEXANDER FIDORA

to the question «Quot leges vobis?» is: «Duae, una in scripto, alia in ore»13. It is therefore possible that, in his explanation of the status of the Talmud as an orally transmitted revelation, Albert the Great would have had recourse to Nicholas Donin’s list. However, this list is not the only potential source for Albert’s remark, since the same distinction between oral and written tradition features very prominently in the introductory prologue to the Extractiones de Talmud. Here we read:

Ut autem quae translata sunt melius intelligi possint, sciendum quod Iudaei dicunt duas leges in monte Synai dominum Moysi tradidisse: una est lex in scripto, et alia est lex super os vel in ore14.

Though the list of rabbinic authorities in Albert’s quote is missing from this passage15, the prologue of the Extractiones de Talmud offers a very ﬁ tting summary of the essential elements that Albert was to pick up, namely the idea of a twofold revelation which became manifest in a written and an oral tradition, the latter of which resulted in the redaction of the Talmud. Finally, with regard to the concrete doctrinal content of Albert’s reference to the Talmud in the commentary on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, namely that the Talmud instigates the Jews to hate their enemies, it is possible to see in this charge an echo of the accusations leveled against the Talmud in the Extractiones (as well as in Nicholas’ list), according to which the Talmud not only tolerates but even encourages aggressive anti- Christian behavior.

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13 LOEB, «La controverse de 1240 sur le Talmud», no. 2, p. 253 (= f. 211va). English translation in FRIEDMAN – HOFF – CHAZAN, The Trial of the Talmud, p. 102: «How many Laws do you have? Two, he replied, one written, the other oral». 14 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 97ra. English translation: «In order to better understand the following translation, one must know that the Jews claim to have received two Laws from the Lord on Mount Sinai through Moses: one is the written Law, the other one is the Law which is on or in the mouth». 15 Already GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, pp. 49-50, drew attention to Albert’s very lax and sometimes arbitrary use of rabbinic authorities. For the mysterious «Rav Vasse», whom he mentions, see below. ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 127

That Albert the Great’s knowledge of the Talmud relies on the Extractiones de Talmud is also supported by the second text under examination, i.e. his commentary on the Sentences which Albert might have started writing in Paris as early as 1243, and which he completed in Cologne in 1249. Discussing the question «An erit resurrectio», Albert refutes several positions which deny resurrection of the dead, among which a purported Jewish reading of Job 14,12 («So men lie down and rise not again. Till the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep»). Concerning this verse Albert explains:

Scias autem, quod in ista auctoritate Iob duae haereses sunt radicatae circa resurrectionem, quarum una est Iudaeorum, sicilict Rabbi Nasse, qui composuit Talmud, qui dicit Iob resurrectionem non credidisse et negasse16.

Albert immediately counters this ‘rabbinic’ interpretation of Job with a refutation that draws on another Talmudic passage according to which Job was no real ﬁ gure but a moral ﬁ ction created by Moses, the ‘author’ of the Hebrew Bible:

Et cum idem dicat quod Iob numquam fuit homo, sed ad formam vivendi et exemplum Moyses Iob exemplariter conﬁ nxerit, redit ad hoc quod Moyses resurrectionem non crediderit, et in isto loco negaverit17.

Albert’s complex argument can be formalized as follows: If the same Rabbi Nasse, whom he credits with the redaction of the Talmud, maintained that a) Job did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, while stating at the same time that b) Moses himself created the ﬁ ctional ﬁ gure

16 Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in IV Sententiarum, ed. A. BORGNET, Apud Ludovicum Vivès, Paris 1894, d. 43, A, a. 1, p. 501 (Ed. Paris., 30). English translation: «You must know that two heresies concerning resurrection base themselves on this text from Job: one among the Jews, e.g. by Rabbi Nasse, the compiler of the Talmud, who stated that Job did not believe in resurrection and that he denied it». 17 Ibid. English translation: «But when the same [Rabbi] says that Job never existed as a man, but that Moses created Job as an outstanding moral model and example, this comes to saying that Moses did not believe in resurrection and that by means of this passage he denied it». 128 ALEXANDER FIDORA

of Job for moral instruction, this would entail the absurd conclusion that c) Moses, as the creator of the literary exemplum of Job, did not believe in the resurrection either. According to Guttmann, followed by Rigo, Albert the Great would have based his argument on two passages from Maimonides’ Dux neutrorum. Indeed, the argument can be related to two passages from the third part of the Dux neutrorum, in the discussion of the Book of Job in Chapters 22 and 23. Thus, in Book III, Chapter 22, Maimonides claims that «some of our sages clearly stated Job has never existed, and has never been created, and that he is a poetic ﬁ ction»18 – which is very close to the second part of Albert’s argument. Yet, Maimonides’ treatment of the ﬁ rst part of Albert’s argument, i.e. Job’s denial of resurrection, is much more nuanced, and can hardly have served to fuel Albert’s attack:

Job then explains that there is no hope after death, so that the cause [of the misfortune of the righteous man] is nothing else but entire neglect on the part of God. He is therefore surprised that God has not abandoned the creation of man altogether; and that after having created him, He does not take any notice of him. He says in his surprise: ‘Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?’ (Job 10,10). This is some of the different views held by some thinkers on Providence. Our sages condemned this view of Job as mischievous, and expressed their feeling in words like the following: ‘dust should have fi lled the mouth of Job’, ‘Job wished to upset the dish’, ‘Job denied the resurrection of the dead’; ‘He commenced to blaspheme’. When, however, God said to Eliphaz and his colleagues, ‘You have not spoken [of me] the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath’ (42,7), our sages assume as the cause of this rebuke, the maxim: ‘Man is not punished for that which he utters in his pain’, and that God ignored the sin of Job [in his utterances], because of the acuteness of his suffering. But this explanation does not agree with the object of the whole allegory. The words of God are justifi ed, as I will show, by the fact that Job abandoned his fi rst, very erroneous opinion, and himself proved that it was an error19.

18 Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, transl. M. FRIEDLÄNDER, 2nd revised edition, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York 1904, III, 22, p. 296. 19 Ibid., III, 23, p. 300. ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 129

It has to be noted that both passages from Maimonides implicitly quote the Talmud: the ﬁ rst one makes reference to Bava Batra 15a (as Guttman noted)20, while the second one relies on Bava Batra 16a (as Rigo added)21. It is certainly more than a mere coincidence that both places are also contained in the Latin Talmud translation of the Extractiones. For Bava Batra 15a the Extractiones read:

Iob non fuit nec fuit creatus, sed fuit exemplum22.

And for Bava Batra 16a:

Sicut consumitur nubes et pertransit sic qui descenderit ad inferos non revertetur ultra in domum suam [Job 7,9-10]. Dicit Rava: ‘Per hoc potestis scire quod Iob negavit resurrectionem mortuorum’23.

The wording of both passages is very close to the phrasing in Albert’s argument above: the ﬁ rst passage uses the term «exemplum» to refer to Job’s allegorical function; and the second passage speaks of denying, «negare», the resurrection. While this may not be sufﬁ cient to rule Maimonides out categorically as a possible source for Albert’s passage under discussion, it is much more likely that these two quotations from the Extractiones served as the starting point for his argument, particularly if we take into account that Maimonides very clearly states the Talmud’s disapproval of the denial of the resurrection based on Job. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that the Extractiones de Talmud can shed some light on the strange references to «Rav Vasse» and «Rabbi Nasse» which we have encountered in both texts analyzed so far. Guttman suggested that Vasse or Nasse could be a misspelling of Rabbi Asse or Ashi, one of the compilers of the Babylonian Talmud24, to which Rigo

20 Cf. GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, p. 49, n. 1. 21 Cf. RIGO, «Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus Magnus», p. 63, n. 186. 22 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 138va. English translation: «Job never existed and he was never created, he was but an example». 23 Ibid., f. 139rb. English translation: «As a cloud dissolves and vanishes, so he who goes down to the nether world shall not again return to his house [Job 7,9-10]. Rava says: ‘From this you can learn that Job denied the resurrection of the dead’». 24 See GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, p. 49, n. 1. 130 ALEXANDER FIDORA

added that Albert could have come across Ashi’s name in Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations against the Talmud25. Again, it is very likely in my eyes that Albert’s source was the dossier of the Extractiones, where in a list of rabbinic authorities we ﬁ nd the following entry: «Rab Asse. Iste compilavit Talmud»26, echoed by Albert’s above argument as «Rabbi Nasse, qui composuit Talmud»27.

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As in the case we have just discussed, Albert’s interest in the Talmud in his commentary on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, written in Cologne in 1248, is also focused on the subject of resurrection28. Albert explains that Dionysius denounced four errors concerning resurrection: the ﬁ rst, attributed to Empedocles, maintains that after death the soul returns to non- being; according to the second, attributed to Plato, after death the souls return to the stars; in the third, Origen is credited with the view that the souls will be reunited after death with the body, though this will be a body of subtle ether; and the fourth and last error, which is imputed to several religious traditions, reads as follows:

Quarta opinio [...] dicebat quod resurget anima cum eodem corpore, sed illud corpus utetur cibis sicut nunc et aliis delectationibus corporalibus, et in hoc esse beatitudinem. Et hoc dicit Papias Hieroapolites, quem secuti sunt etiam in hoc Apollinaristae, et hoc etiam dicit Machumet in lege sua, et similiter Iudaei in Talmuth quod comedent anseres in alia vita et Leviathan29.

25 See RIGO, «Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus Magnus», p. 63, n. 184. 26 Cf. Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16658, f. 231vb. 27 Rabbi Ashi is also mentioned in the prologue of the Extractiones as the compiler of the Talmud: «Igitur Rab Asse singulas Iudaeorum stultitias et errores, tempore Anthoninot imperatoris, ut infra legitur, a Rbi collectos, in sex praedictis voluminibus ridiculose composuit». Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 99rb. 28 Also HASSELHOFF, Dicit Rabbi Moyses, pp. 95-96, also n. 34, asserts Albert’s interest in Jewish sources regarding resurrection: Maimonides is in fact quoted repeatedly in Albert’s De resurrectione. 29 Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysium De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, ed. M. BURGER, Aschendorff, Münster i. W. 1999, p. 148 (Ed. Colon., 36/2). English translation: «According to the fourth opinion the soul resurrects in conjunction ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 131

The criticism of anthropomorphic and carnal imagery regarding God and the afterlife was of course a very common accusation with regard to both Islam and Judaism. It is interesting, however, that Albert’s reference to the Talmud puts forward much more detail than that of the other authors and texts he mentions. Guttmann in fact identiﬁ ed the reference to the Jews’ eating the Leviathan with a passage from Bava Batra 75a that is also alluded to in the Parisian Talmud trial in 124030. Thus, the Hebrew report of the Talmud trial recounts that Nicholas Donin accused the Talmud of the following:

It says further that in the future they shall eat a meal of Leviathan that, since the six days of creation, was in salt to prevent decay31.

As to the roast goose, Guttmann ﬁ rst thought that this was a literary invention of Albert, though in his Addenda and Corrigenda he was able to trace back the quote to another Talmudic passage, namely Bava Batra 73b32. The passage is contained neither in the Hebrew report of the Parisian Talmud trial, nor in Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations33. Again, the Extractiones de Talmud are key for understanding Albert’s use of the Talmud. Both passages from Bava Batra are contained among the hundreds of texts translated in the Latin Talmud. Bava Batra 73b is rendered as follows:

Dicit Rava: ‘Quaedam vice ibamus per desertum et vidimus anseres quibus alae cadebant prae pinguedine et currebant torrentes sanguinis de eis. Ego dixi illis: Habebo partem in vobis in futuro saeculo’34? with the same body, though this body will need food and other corporeal amenities; and this would be beatitude. This is maintained by Papias of Hierapolis, who was followed in this by the Apollinarists, and Muhammad afﬁ rms the same in his law, and likewise the Jews say in the Talmud that they will eat geese and the Leviathan in the life to come». 30 See GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, p. 49, n. 1. 31 Quoted from FRIEDMAN – HOFF – CHAZAN, The Trial of the Talmud, p. 159. 32 See GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, p. VII. 33 Contrary to what RESNICK, «Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great», says at p. 75. The trial does refer to Bava Batra 73b, but without mentioning the geese at all. 34 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 141vb. English translation: «Rava says: ‘Once we were travelling in the desert and saw geese whose wings fell out on account of their 132 ALEXANDER FIDORA

And only a few folios later in the Parisian manuscript, the Extractiones offer the Latin translation from Bava Batra 75a:

Dicit Rava: ‘Deus, benedictus sit ipse, expectat facere convivium iustis de carnibus Leviathan. Sicut scriptum est: ‘Comedent eum amici’ [cf. Job 40,25]35.

Employing the same bricolage technique as in his above argument on Job, it seems that Albert would have blended two passages from the Latin Talmud to argue for his point. It has to be emphasized that with regard to Bava Batra 73b the Extractiones seem to be the only source available for Albert. While in our ﬁ rst example Albert could have drawn on Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations against the Talmud, and in the second example Maimonides offers parallel texts, this third example of Albert’s use of the Talmud is more complicated to explain. While Bava Batra 75a was quoted during the Parisian Talmud trial, as Guttmann pointed out, the geese from Bava Batra 73b do not appear anywhere else but in the Latin Talmud. As a consequence, we can account for Albert’s use of the Talmud either by referring to a large variety of texts, such as Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations, Maimonides’ Dux neutrorum and the Hebrew report of the Talmud trial, which, nonetheless, do not embrace all his quotations; or we can explain these quotations, much more satisfyingly, through one single text: the Extractiones de Talmud, which in fact covers all the material that Albert is relaying.

***

While one should certainly not overrate Albert’s use of the Talmud, quotations of which are quite rare (taking into account the extent of his oeuvre), it is possible to draw some conclusions, both historical and systematic. From the historical point of view, there can be little doubt that Albert knew the Talmud not only through the mediation of other sources, but that, fatness, and streams of blood fl owed under them. I said to them: ‘Shall I have a share of you in the world to come?’». 35 Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 143va-b. English translation: «Rava says: ‘God, blessed be He, will make a banquet for the righteous from the fl esh of Leviathan. For it is written: ‘Friends will eat it [cf. Job 40,25]ʼ». ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 133 as a member of the commission that endorsed the fi nal condemnation of the Talmud in 1248, he read the Extractiones de Talmud or at least parts of it, particularly the Treatise Bava Batra. Though the commission under Odo of Châteauroux gathered 41 ecclesiastics, among whom the Bishop of Paris, William of Auvergne, and Thibaud de Sézanne36, Albert seems to have been the fi rst to quote the Latin translation of the Talmud in the works that he composed during the late 1240s in Paris and Cologne37. From a systematic point of view, it is noticeable that all of Albert’s references to the Talmud imply the charge of a corporeal interpretation of the afterlife, in particular, and of scripture, in general (this being eventually Albert’s argument against the commandment to hate one’s enemies, from our fi rst example). As a matter of fact, Albert’s criticism of the apparently corporeal or carnal discourse of the Talmud is very much in line with the wider Christian polemic against Judaism and the Talmud of his age, and is therefore neither surprising nor particularly original in itself. The structure of Albert’s argument on Job from our second example deserves more attention, since here the argumentative strategy seems to be less traditional and, instead, more innovative. This argument can be seen as preluding, in a certain sense, the shifts in method and content in Christian- Jewish polemics promoted by some of his Dominican confrere’s from the 1260s onwards. As I have shown, Albert’s argument in his commentary on the Sentences combines two passages from Bava Batra on Job in order to demonstrate that, if they are read together, they lead to untenable conclusions, i.e. that Moses himself would have denied resurrection. Thus, Albert tacitly maintains that the Talmud itself yields – from within – the potential to refute Jewish interpretations and to prove Christian claims: a strategy that was systematically put into practice by Pau Cristià O.P. during

36 A list of the members of the commission is contained in Paris, BnF, Ms. lat. 16558, f. 234vb. It starts with William of Auvergne; «frater Albertus Teutonicus» features among the «magistri theologiae» and «frater Theobaldus de Saxannia» along with «alii viri boni». 37 While William of Auvergne occasionally refers to Jewish legends which probably go back to the Talmud or the Midrash, these references are too vague to establish a direct textual dependence on the Extractiones (cf. GUTTMANN, Die Scholas- tik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts, pp. 15-18). As for Thibaud de Sézanne, his Pharetra ﬁ dei seems closer to Nicholas Donin’s list of accusations against the Talmud than to the Extractiones (cf. FIDORA, «The Latin Talmud and Its Translators»). 134 ALEXANDER FIDORA

the Barcelona disputation in 126338, before being expertly developed and exploited by Albert’s disciple Ramon Martí O.P. in his Pugio ﬁ dei (ca. 1280)39.

Bibliography

Editions

Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in IV Sententiarum, ed. A. BORGNET, Apud Ludovicum Vivès, Paris 1894 (Ed. Paris., 30). ––, Super Matthaeum. Capitula I-XIV, ed. B. SCHMIDT, Aschendorff, Münster i. W. 1987 (Ed. Colon., 21/1). ––, Super Dionysium De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, ed. M. BURGER, Aschendorff, Münster i. W. 1999 (Ed. Colon., 36/2). Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, transl. M. FRIEDLÄNDER, 2nd revised edition, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York 1904. Raimundus Martini, Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos, cum observationibus Josephi Voisin, et introductione Jo. Benedicti Carpzovi…, Friedrich Lanckisch, Leipzig 1687 (repr. Gregg Press, Farnborough 1967).

38 Among the very copious bibliography on the Barcelona disputation see the classical study by R. CHAZAN, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response, University of California, Berkeley 1989, pp. 68- 86. 39 Cf. Raimundus Martini, Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos, cum observationibus Josephi Voisin, et introductione Jo. Benedicti Carpzovi…, Friedrich Lanckisch, Leipzig 1687 (repr. Gregg Press, Farnborough 1967). On Albert, III, II, 2, p. 555: «Albertus magister in theologia et philosophus magnus, frater praedicator et episcopus». Also see P. RIBES MONTANÉ, «San Alberto Magno, maestro y fuente del apologeta medieval Ramón Martí», Anthologica Annua, 24-25 (1977-1978) 593-617; see also A. GILETTI, «The Journey of an Idea: Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Ramon Martí on the Undemonstrability of the Eternity of the World», in J. F. MEIRINHOS – M. LÁZARO PULIDO (eds.), Pensar a natureza. Problemas e respostas na Idade Média (séculos IX-XIV), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Oporto 2011, pp. 239-267, at pp. 261-262. ALBERT THE GREAT AND THE LATIN TALMUD 135

Studies

R. CHAZAN, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response, University of California, Berkeley 1989. A. FIDORA, «The Latin Talmud and Its Inﬂ uence on Christian-Jewish Polemic», Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies, 1/2 (2014) 337- 342. ––, «The Latin Talmud and Its Translators: Thibaud de Sézanne vs. Nicholas Donin?», Henoch. Historical and Textual Studies in Ancient and Medieval Judaism and Christianity, 37/1 (2015) 17-28. ––, «Die Handschrift 19b des Arxiu Capitular de Girona: Ein Beitrag zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des lateinischen Talmud», in C. ALRAUM – A. HOLNDONNER – H.-CH. LEHNER – C. SCHERER – TH. SCHLAUWITZ – V. UNGER (eds.), Zwischen Rom und Santiago. Festschrift für Klaus Herbers zum 65. Geburtstag, Winkler, Bochum 2016, pp. 49-56. J. FRIEDMAN – J. C. HOFF – R. CHAZAN, The Trial of the Talmud: Paris, 1240, PIMS, Toronto 2012. A. GILETTI, «The Journey of an Idea: Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Ramon Martí on the Undemonstrability of the Eternity of the World», in J. F. MEIRINHOS – M. LÁZARO PULIDO (eds.), Pensar a natureza. Problemas e respostas na Idade Média (séculos IX-XIV), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Oporto 2011, pp. 239-267. J. GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts in ihren Beziehungen zum Judenthum und zur jüdischen Literatur, Verlag von M. & H. Marcus, Breslau 1902. G. K. HASSELHOFF, Dicit Rabbi Moyses. Studien zum Bild von Moses Maimonides im lateinischen Westen vom 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004. M. JOËL, Verhältniss Albert des Grossen zu Moses Maimonides. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Philosophie, Verlag der Schletter’schen Buchhandlung, Breslau 1863. I. LOEB, «La controverse de 1240 sur le Talmud», Revue des études juives, 1 (1880) 247-261; ibid., 2 (1881) 248-270; ibid., 3 (1881) 39-57. I. M. RESNICK, «Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great», Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 33 (2002) 69-86. P. RIBES MONTANÉ, «San Alberto Magno, maestro y fuente del apologeta medieval Ramón Martí», Anthologica Annua, 24-25 (1977-1978) 593- 617. 136 ALEXANDER FIDORA

C. RIGO, «Zur Rezeption des Moses Maimonides im Werk des Albertus Magnus», in W. SENNER (ed.), Albertus Magnus. Zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren: Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001.