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The John Fell Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts at Christ Church Library, Oxford

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The John Fell Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts at Christ Church Library, Oxford The John Fell Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts at Christ Church Library, Oxford Introductory Studies and Notes Jeremy I. Pfeffer Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel ii Contents Preface iii Foreword vi Overview and Provenance 1 Codex 187 Hebrew Translations by Eli ben Joseph Ḥabillo of the 17 Queries posed by John Versor (Versorius) Codex 188 A Mélange of Kabbalistic and Maimonidean Texts 22 Codex 189 Moses ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew Translation of Abu Bakr al- 62 Hassar's 12th Arabic Treatise on Arithmetic, Kitāb al Bayān Codex 190 Three Hebrew Expositions on Works by Aristotle 97 Codex 193 Two Unrelated Texts: “Speech is Dumb” and the Khazar 103 Correspondence Codex 194 Notes on Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine 125 127 טעמי מצות – Codex 195 Reasons for the Mitzvot 132 מרדכי הקטן – Codex 196 Mordekhai HaKatan 137 דובר משרים – Codex 197 A Forthright Speaker Codex 198 R. Jacob Lagarto’s Collection of Kabbalah and Hekhalot 146 Texts Codex 199 A Controversy in the Amsterdam Jewish Community in 154 1650 Codex 200 Mebo Higgaion: Introduction to Logic 176 Codex 201 Jehuda Kohen’s Commentary on Logic 179 Preface I first came across the collection of Hebrew Manuscripts at Christ Church Library, Oxford, while trawling the catalogue of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts in Jerusalem. I was searching for primary sources on the acceptance of proselytes by the nascent seventeenth and eighteenth century Jewish communities in Holland and England, when I came across the catalogue entry for the Christ Church Ms.199. Quoting from the manuscript itself, the entry read (in translation): “It was written in consequence of a legal question concerning a man of the seed of Israel, one of the Anussim [Critianos Nuevos, Conversos or Marranos] in Portugal, who profaned himself with a gentile woman, who bore him a son. The man subsequently died…The young man remained attached to his mother until he grew up and learned wisdom, and ‘the spirit of the Lord began to stir in him’…and he went in search of the Lord and came to Holland…and became a Jew… The young man prospered and some years later he was proposed for the position of lay head of the Amsterdam Jewish community. But at the meeting called to confirm his appointment, one of the members present objected on the grounds that he was not eligible to occupy a communal position of coercive authority by reason of the Torah statute that “from amongst your brethren shall you set a king over you…you may not place a foreigner over you.” (Deuteronomy 17:15). Since Talmudic times, this ruling had also been applied to all positions of coercive authority in a Jewish community and the legal question he raised was whether this son of an Anuss and a gentile mother was “from amongst your brethren” in the sense required to occupy a position of authority? Unsure how to proceed, the community put the question out to the world of European rabbinical scholars and Ms.199 contains three of the replies they received. The manuscript seemed to be just what I was looking for but the actual microfilm proved to be almost illegible and the master reel from which it had been copied could not be located. It was only after visiting Oxford and making the acquaintance of Dr. Cristina Neagu, Keeper of Special Collections at Christ iv Preface Church, who offered to personally photograph the entire 110 pages of the codex for me, that I could undertake a proper study of the manuscript. Two of the rabbinical replies proved to be previously unknown works by the 17th century polymath Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591-1655), but written under assumed names. At once a rabbinical scholar, mystic and mathematical scientist who counted Karaites among his friends, a proponent of the Copernican heliocentric model and the first Jew to use logarithms, he could not be other than controversial. As such, he had had to hide his identity if his replies were to be taken seriously. First reported in an article in the Christ Church Library Newsletter (Vol. 6, Issue 3, 2010), this discovery sent me back to the Library to see what other such intriguing Hebrew manuscripts there might be in its collection. The Library possesses just thirteen codices of medieval and early modern Hebrew manuscripts, numbered 187 to 190 and 193 to 201 in the catalogue, prepared by G.W.Kitchin in 1863 (Appendix 1). Six comprise secular texts – original works by Jewish scholars or Hebrew translations of Christian or Arabic works, many themselves versions of, or commentaries on, classical writings – and seven containing specifically Jewish works: Rabbinics, Esoteric Kabbalah and Hekhalot Texts, Torah Homilies, the Khazar Correspondence and a Morality Play. The collection is currently being digitised and made available on the Library website.∗ Information regarding the codicology and palaeography of the manuscripts was readily available from the catalogue of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Israel National Library, Jerusalem, and it is from there that the particulars cited below were taken. There was, however, much less at hand regarding the provenance of the manuscripts and codices. An examination of the watermarks revealed that while the actual manuscript folios were mostly of Mediterranean origin – Italian or Spanish – many of the separator sheets and endpapers had 17th century North European or even English marks, which provided an insight into when and where the codices were bound into their present covers. The Library’s Donors Book records gifts of Hebrew books and manuscripts from John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, at various times between 1660 and 1686. Fell was also the founder of the Oxford University Press and most probably ∗ http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library-and-archives/hebrew-manuscripts Preface v acquired these Hebrew manuscripts from the Dutch brokers, booksellers and printers with whom he had dealings as part of his ambitious plans for the new University Press. These Introductory Studies and Notes have been a work in progress for almost ten years. Whenever the project seemed complete, a new source or record would somehow crop up and require further examination. But the time has come to call a halt. The findings presented here are, therefore, incomplete; no more than appetizers. A thorough elucidation of this eclectic collection requires a level of specialist expertise that I do not possess and must be left to others to complete. In the meantime, I hope these introductory studies and notes will help readers to navigate the digitised manuscript texts. My sincere thanks to Dr. Cristina Neagu for availing me of the opportunity to work on these manuscripts and to her stalwart assistant, Alina Nachescu, for photographing the images and watermarks. But most of all, to my very best friend over the past fifty five years, my dear wife Barbara Ann, for her love and support. Jeremy I. Pfeffer Rehovot, Israel. April 2018. Foreword I feel immensely privileged to have met the author of this book which sheds unique light on the Hebrew collection of manuscripts at Christ Church in Oxford. Before Jeremy Pfeffer’s arrival, the volumes had been sitting on the shelves, undisturbed, for perhaps centuries. They were just listed in a general catalogue of manuscripts published in 1867: G.W. Kitchin’s Catalogus codicum mss qui in bibliotheca Ædis Christi apud Oxonienses adservantur. It is now easy to disparage Kitchin’s work as too succinct. He embarked on this project at a moment in the history of the Library when searching for records meant only realizing how few, imprecise and disorganised these were. Access to information about the collections had never been easy. However, looking through scattered details in a variety of Library records will reveal a few interesting facts. The first gift of a manuscript to the Library, in 1565, was not a Western codex, as one would expect, but a 13th century Torah in book (rather than roll) format. Readers may be surprised not to find the so called ‘MS 1’ among the Hebrew manuscripts mentioned in Jeremy’s book. Sadly (and mysteriously) this priceless manuscript is no longer at Christ Church. For quite a long time, it has been away from Oxford, at Westminster Abbey. Despite its conspicuous absence from the Library collections, this manuscript tells a story about the importance of Hebrew at Christ Church. When the college was re-founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the Statutes stipulated from the very start the position of Regius Professors of Hebrew. This is a prestigious Chair in the University of Oxford which has continued uninterrupted to this day. More, in 1683, when Dean John Fell made his gift of thirteen codices, discussed at length and brilliantly by Mr Pfeffer, there were more Hebrew manuscripts at Christ Church than Greek. These manuscripts have been given a voice again after Jeremy Pfeffer’s series of visits at Christ Church. His indepth study has revealed how precious and exciting the collection is. In this endlessly fascinating book, the reader is gently and patiently taken by the hand and shown not only erudite descriptions of Foreword vii manuscripts, but also the rich sources of imagery, metaphor and moral insight that has informed their writing. Cristina Neagu Keeper of Special Collections Christ Church Library, Oxford Overview and Provenance An entry dated 1683 in the Christ Church Library Donors Book (p.194) records the gift of thirteen Hebrew manuscripts by John Fell, Dean of Christ Church and Bishop of Oxford (Fig.I).1 Fig.I: The entries, bottom left and top right, on p.194 of the Christ Church Library Donors Book read (in translation): “The Reverend Father in Christ, John, Bishop of Oxford and Dean of this Church.
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