Petrus Alphonsi
Petrus Alphonsi (died after 1116) was a Spanish physician, writer, astronomer and polemicist who was born and raised as a Jew and later in life converted to Christianity in 1106.
As he described himself, he was baptised at Huesca, capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, on St. Peter's Day, 29 June 1106, when he was probably approaching middle age; this is the first clear date we have in his biography.
Petrus' upbringing placed him in an atmosphere that provided a significant impetus to launch him as one of the most important figures in anti-Judaic polemics.
According to Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi was reared in a society in turmoil: a place of chaos and political instability, where Islam and Christianity were becoming a larger influence.
His background was conveniently placed in the centre of contention between religions and circumstances that surrounded his upbringing, and provided the framework for polemics that would shape Medieval Judaic perception.
[4] The presence of Alfonsi in the West Country in the years before that date may have contributed to the flowering of Arabic science in that region from the 1120s onwards.
It is entitled Disciplina Clericalis (A Training-school for the Clergy), and was often used by clergymen in their discourses, notwithstanding the questionable moral tone of some of the stories.
At the beginning of the 13th century an anonymous versifier rendered some sentences and tales from the Disciplina Clericalis by Petrus Alphonsi (1110 circa) into the elegiac metre.
Joseph Jacobs discovered some of the stories at the end of Caxton's translation of the fables of Æsop, where thirteen apologues of "Alfonce" are taken in fact from the Disciplina Clericalis.
[11] An early French translation of this Hebrew language extract was made prior to 1698 by Piques, and August Pichard published another version in Paris, 1838.
He believed that they purposely lied in order to conceal their sin of killing Jesus, in spite of the fact that they knew that he was the Son of God.
Petrus Alfonsi also claimed that the Talmud was written to keep the Jewish people from seeing that Jesus was the Son of God; he called the Talmud “a fabric of lies” and a “heretical book.” What makes this doctrine so radically different from some previous Christian polemics of the time is that they tried to prove the validity of Christianity by pointing out scriptures in the Old Law that confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God.
This tradition did not place any emphasis on Judaism being heretical, but rather pointed to the fact that the Jews had a pivotal part to play in the spreading of Christianity.
Alfonsi attempted to explain this discrepancy by stating that Judaism is heretical, and that the Jewish leaders have knowingly covered up the truth.
Alfonsi's polemical work did not signify that the twelfth century was filled with violence between religions, or that many who professed to be Christians were actively crusading against the Jews for conversion.
Although Alfonsi may not have been the man who was forcibly converting Jews, his writings did enable later polemicist to fabricate even bolder claims of the Talmud including that it was satanic.
Petrus Alfonsi's Dialogi contra Iudaeos was not an entirely new polemical concept; he used the same arguments and cited the same Old Testament prophecies that polemicists before him had been using.
Before Alfonsi's Dialogi contra Iudaeos, Medieval Latin knew very little about the religious beliefs and practices of the Jews living within their own city.
What made Petrus Alfonsi's work unique and gave him a level of influence that was unmatched by any of the preceding polemicists was his knowledge of Judaism combined with his new concept on how to perceive it.
The polemics between Moses and Peter seemed to have a friendly tone in their voices, but the arguments that the Dialogi presented were a radically new way to attack Judaism.
This knowledge made him an authority, and allowed some people to begin to question the longstanding Augustinian tradition of tolerance, which was problematic for the Jews on many different levels.
This is particularly interesting because his polemics demonstrate that the Jewish people were not impenitently heretical but rather misguided by envious rabbis who wanted to retain power over the Jews.
These concepts that flipped the Augustinian tradition upside-down laid the groundwork and afforded the language that would enable Christians to persecute the Jews for the purpose of conversion.
When Petrus Alfonsi quoted from the Talmud, he ignored any such slanderous language, and focused on references that would contradict philosophical logic or scientific fact.
He showed how science of his day clearly contradicted the Talmudic claim in hopes of discrediting the validity of it being divinely inspired.
To accomplish this, Petrus so arrogantly says that he “is not less convincing than if Mohammad himself were present...” This confidence in his knowledge of the Islamic faith allows the opportunity for the Dialogi to make a difference in the perception of Christians in Latin Europe.
In the start of the fifth titulus, Moses conceded that Peter did not agree with Judaism, but then made the insinuation that Islam is a just religion, and that it is preferred over Christianity.
If you should investigate the basis of this law, you will find that it is grounded on an unshakable foundation of reason.” What Petrus attempted to do here is have Moses defend Islam.
His surroundings suggested that his conversion was merely the product of opportunism and chaos, but when one begins to delve into the Dialogi contra Iudaeos it becomes apparent that he deeply believed what he wrote.
It is my belief that Petrus supposed that all Jews simply needed to see the truth and that the rabbis were lying out of envy to keep the populace subordinated.
