You say that the Messiah has come .

:
The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and
its place in the Christian
anti-Jewish polemics of the
high middle ages
Maya Soifer
History Department, Princeton University, Dickinson Hall,
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Abstract
This article suggests that the Disputation of Ceuta provides a link between the Christian
anti-Jewish polemical discourse of the twelfth century, produced largely for internal
consumption, and the active missionising of the thirteenth century. Having purportedly
taken place in the North African port of Ceuta between a Christian merchant from Genoa and
a Jew from Ceuta at the time of Almohad rule (1179), the disputation displays the signs of
a major shift in the Christian contra Judaeos strategies. Unlike other twelfth-century works of
this genre, which address a variety of points central to Jewish-Christian debate, the Ceuta
Disputation is remarkably consistent in its emphasis on one particular issue e that of the
coming of the Messiah. The messianic content of this disputation thus foreshadows the central
thrust of the thirteenth-century Dominican mission to the Jews, which nds its fullest
expression at the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. The article explains the prominence of this
theme in the period by suggesting that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta
E-mail address: msoifer@princeton.edu
0304-4181/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jmedhist.2005.06.002
Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist
Disputation could be the result of the Christian protagonists meeting with the North African
Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerable
interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta had
or had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed in
the Disputations text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews and
Christians.
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Jewish and Christian relations; Mediterranean trade in the middle ages; Ceuta; Genoa;
Scriptural exegesis, Almohads
The Messiah came in the twelfth century. This time he did not arrive in the
manner anticipated by the prophets of the Bible. Rather, his arrival occurred in the
world of polemics, where he suddenly emerged from relative obscurity to become
the central topic of the continuing religious debate between Jews and Christians. He
appeared on the pages of a little-known text, which was gathering dust in the library
of the University of Genoa, until Ora Limor discovered it in the 1980s, and published
it under the title of the Ceuta Disputation of 1179, by analogy with the thirteenth-
century disputations of Paris and Barcelona.
1
The time has come to lift the veil of
obscurity that surrounds the polemical Messiahs arrival, and the only way to do so
is to analyze the text and the context of the Ceuta Disputation.
The Disputations inconspicuous beginning carries no hint of the remarkable
discussion about to unfold. The voice of the narrator provides a minimalist
description of the participants and names the city where the debate occurred: Here
begins a disputation between Guilielmus Alphachinus of Genoa and a certain very
wise Jew by the name of Abraham Mo, which took place in Ceuta.
2
The disputation
follows immediately, without a smooth transition. As if continuing an earlier
discussion, the Jew introduces the topic that is to dominate the entire debate: You
say that the Messiah has come and was circumcised (Tu dicis Messiam venisse et
circumcissum fuisse).
3
From this point on the disputation proceeds as a question and
answer session, with the Jew posing the questions and the Christian answering them.
The Jew is thus the one who drives the discussion forward by introducing new topics.
The discussion encompasses many issues frequently broached in the Jewish-Christian
debate, such as circumcision, virgin birth, dietary prohibitions, and allegorical and
literal interpretation of the Bible. However, the Jew always insists on returning to the
1
Die disputationen zu Ceuta (1179) und Mallorca (1286): zwei antijudische schriften aus dem
mittelalterlichen Genua, ed. Ora Limor (Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1994).
2
Incipit disputatio inter Guilielmum Alphachinum Ianuensem et quendam sapientissimum Iudeum Mo
Abraym nomine, que fuit facta Septe; Limor, Die Disputationen, 137. Limor speculates that the Mo in
Abraham Mo might be either a part of his rst name (Moses), or of an honorary title like mori or
morenu, my/our teacher; Die Disputationen, 3.
3
Die Disputationen, 137.
288 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
question of the Messiahs coming. The following exchange is characteristic of the
entire debate:
The Jew said: It is necessary for you to demonstrate more clearly and to show
that the Messiah has come, which you have not yet demonstrated.
Guilielmus answered: I will prove to you straightforwardly and demonstrate
that the Messiah has come.
4
The Jews inquiries can be classied according to several broad categories: Old
Testaments pregurative prophecies; messianic prophecies and their fulllment;
the Christian Messiahs fulllment of the Law; the divinity of the Messiah; and
the restriction of salvation to believers in the Messiah. In the beginning of the
disputation, after indicating his desire to debate the issue of the Messiahs
coming, the Jew wants to know why Christians deviate from their Messiahs
example by refusing to submit to circumcision: And why are the Christians not
circumcised?
5
The Christian responds, but only after the Jew arms his own
belief in the truth of the Jewish prophets: If I did not hold these things which
the prophets foretold as valid, I would not profess myself to be a Jew.
6
This
sentence is the key to the disputation: the Jew cannot deny the prophets; so, if he
can be shown that the prophecies pointed toward Jesus, he must acknowledge
him as the promised Messiah. Next, the Christian discusses the topic of
circumcision, arguing in the traditional Christian vein that physical circumcision
came to an end with the advent of the Messiah, replaced by circumcision of the
heart.
7
The Jew then puts forward another objection to Jesuss messiahship,
expressing doubts as to whether the Messiah should have been born of a virgin, if
Isaiah had spoken only of a young girl. The Christian retorts that there would
have been nothing miraculous about a young girl giving birth; therefore, the
prophet meant to speak of a virgin.
8
In the next several paragraphs, the Jew tries a dierent strategy, demanding the
Christian show that a number of prophecies found in the Old Testament were
fullled, which would be a proof that the Messiah had already come.
9
To the Jews
assertion that the promise of messianic peace found in Isaiah 9:7 remains unfullled,
the Christian answers that God sent the Messiah as a messenger of peace and an
4
Die Disputationen, 142.
5
Die Disputationen. Et Christiani quare non circumciduntur?
6
Die Disputationen. Ad hec Guilielmus Alfachinus Ianuensis respondit: Dic michi prius, si cuncta que
prophete dixerunt pro rmo habebis, et ego postea respondebo tibi. Iudeus dixit: Si ea que prophete
prophetaverunt pro rmo non haberem, Iudeum me esse non conterer.
7
Die Disputationen, 137-8.
8
Die Disputationen, 138-40.
9
Die Disputationen, 140. Iudeus dixit: Quanta tibi ostendere oportet completa esse ex prophetis, si vis
probare, quod Messias venit? Guilielmus respondit: Dic, quod velis, et ego respondebo tibi.
289 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
intermediary between God and men.
10
Unsatised, the Jew complains that, It is
necessary for you to demonstrate more clearly and to show that the Messiah has
come, which you have not yet demonstrated.
11
In answer, the Christian invokes the
famous prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27 on the seventy weeks of years,
12
arguing that
many prophets spoke about the Messiah in Jerusalem before the advent of Christ,
but have disappeared since. And therefore, he concludes, you should not doubt,
but believe rmly that the Messiah has come.
13
However, the Jew is not ready to let
the Christian o the hook. Did the prophets ever say that the Messiah should be
called God, or that he was to rule for eternity, considering Daniels prediction that
this future reign was to last unto a time, and times, and half a time (Dan. 12:7)? The
Christian tries to put his mind at rest on both counts, arguing in response to the
second objection that the prophet applied this condition not to the true Messiah, but
to the Messiah the Jews continued to expect, that is, the Antichrist.
14
Then, a rapid
succession of questions and answers ensues, as the Christian grapples with the
following inquiries from the Jew: (1) where is the evidence that the kingdom of Edom
has been destroyed? (2) should not the Jewish people as a whole, and not only those
who believe in the Messiah, be saved? (3) should not the Messiah be rst sent to the
Jewish people?
15
Abruptly thereafter, the Jew returns to the strategy used at the beginning of the
disputation, when he challenged the Christian repudiation of circumcision by asking
his opponent to explain why the Christian Messiah promised not to destroy but to
fulll the law, and yet failed to uphold it, in this new case, the law of dietary
prohibitions. The Christian accuses the Jew of being unable to discern [ruminare] and
provides an explanation that is almost entirely based on Isidores De de catholica.
16
Stymied, the Jew promptly shifts the subject back to the person of the Messiah,
demanding that the Christian present evidence that the prophets foretold the
Messiahs crucixion.
17
When asked by the Jew to show that the Messiah had to be
sealed with a stone, with guards set before it, the Christian declares Sampson a type of
10
Die Disputationen, 141. Tu scis, quia diabolus propter superbiam de celo in terram deiectus est, et ideo
deus hominem fecit, ut de eius stirpe angelicus ordo, qui fuerat imminutus, compleretur. Homo vero
creatus et in paradiso positus suasione diabolica peccavit, et statim discordia inter angelos et homines tam
magna fuit, quod preces eos postea noluerunt audire. Sed venit mediator dei et hominum Messias quem tu
dicis, mittere hanc pacem, et misit; de qua propheta fuerat locutus. This might be an echo of St. Anselms
Cur Deus Homo? or more directly of Gilbert Crispins writings: see Anna Sapir Abulaa and G. R. Evans,
The works of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), xxxiii.
11
Die Disputationen, 142. Magis oportet te aperte ostendere et monstrare Messiam venisse quam nondum
ostendisti.
12
On the role of this passage in Jewish-Christian inter-religious polemics see Robert Chazan, Daniel
9:24-27: exegesis and polemics, in Contra Iudaeos: ancient and medieval polemics between Christians and
Jews, ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1996), 143-59.
13
Die Disputationen, 142-3. Et ideo non debes dubitare, sed rmiter credere Messiam venisse.
14
Die Disputationen, 143-4.
15
Die Disputationen, 145-8. The second question in particular seems to be troubling the Jew: he asks it
three times.
16
Die Disputationen, 148-50.
17
Die Disputationen, 150.
290 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
Christ, who, captured by his enemies, was able to escape from prison after three days:
On the third day, he [Samson] opened and broke the gates and the seal, and scared
the guardians to death. This Samson is interpreted as the sun, and the Messiah, who
is called Christ in Latin, was the true sun, because he illuminated the entire world.
18
But the Jew also wants evidence that the Messiah is supposed to rise again (Et ubi
invenisti, quod Messias debuit resurregere?), and that he should be called the Son of
God (Et ubi invenisti Messiam lium dei nominari debuisse?).
19
Interrupting the ow of
the discussion, the Christian, however, digresses from the subject of the Messiah to
oer his allegorical interpretation of Proverbs 30:18-20. But even here he takes the
time to point out that the way of a serpent upon a rock signies the way of the Devil in
the world after the coming of Christ who is called the Messiah (qui dicitur Messias),
whose rmness [is understood] as a rock (qui pro rmitate petra).
20
Still, the Jew determines to pursue his favorite line of argument to the very end. He
hurls one more prophecy at the Christian, making it very clear that the outcome of the
debate hinges on the latters ability to deect this last polemical arrow. The Jew is
convinced that the Christian would never be able to provide an adequate response:
Listen, Christian, to the things that I will put against you at once, what has to
come and appear at the time of the Messiah, what has not yet come, nor
appeared, and what you will never be able in any way to show or prove to have
come or appear. And therefore all that you said from the prophets [about] the
Messiah to have come, will entirely turn to nothing. For in the time of the
Messiah, a certain city by the name of Sylo [Shiloh] has to come and appear,
which has not yet come or appeared, and which you will never be able in any
way to show to have come or appear.
21
However, the Jew is quickly disappointed in his expectations. The Christian
declares him stupid (te ipsum stultum ostendis), and proceeds to argue that the Sylo
of the prophecy in Gen. 49:10 is best translated as sent, and that it refers to this
Messiah, who is called Christ, who was sent (de illo Messia, qui dicitur Christus, qui
mittendus erat). Immediately he mounts an attack against the Jew, challenging him,
in his turn, to provide some evidence that the passage e The sceptre shall not be taken
away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, and he shall be the expectation till he come
that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations e accurately describes the
situation of the contemporary Jews:
Now therefore show me the sceptre, show me some leadership or power that
you have had from that time! Which you will not be able to show or to prove in
18
Die Disputationen, 154. Sanson vero quid fecit? Tercia die portas et signacula aperuit et confreit, et
custodes usque ad mortem formidavit. Sanson iste sol interpretatur, et Messias, qui Latine dicitur
Christus, verus sol fuit, quia totum mundum illuminavit.
19
Die Disputationen, 155, 157.
20
Die Disputationen, 161.
21
Die Disputationen, 164. See the reading of the verse by Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam) (1085-1158), in
Schiloh: ein beitrag zurg geschichte der messiaslehre, Part I: die auslegung von Genesis 49:10 im altertume bis
zu ende des mittelalters, ed. Adolf Posnanski (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung, 1904), 127-8.
291 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
any way. And if it is true that you cannot prove [it] either entirely true, or to the
contrary, you have to believe beyond all doubt that the Messiah has come, and
everything that the prophets have said of him is fullled. Whereupon you have
to admit yourself defeated, and if you wish to be saved, it is necessary for you
to be a Christian and be baptised.
22
At this dramatic moment, the Jew realises that the last polemical weapon in his
arsenal has failed him. Not only does he announce his decision to become
a Christian, but he also provides an explanation for his change of mind. The Jew
wants to be baptised because he is convinced that the Messiah has already come: I
truly believe that the Messiah has come, and everything that the prophets prophesied
is fullled, and I admit myself to be outdone, and with a willing spirit I wish to be
made a Christian and be baptised.
23
By now it should be abundantly clear that the disputation between a Jew and
a Christian that purports to have taken place in the North African city of Ceuta
revolved around the question of the coming of the Messiah. So what, one might ask.
After all, was not the issue of the messianic role of Jesus what divided Judaism from
Christianity in the rst place? Was it not only natural that a Jew and a Christian
getting together to debate the merits of their respective faiths would focus on the
issue of the Messiah? The surprising answer, at least for the twelfth century, seems to
be no. A look at other twelfth-century disputations, which, like the Ceuta
Disputation, claim to be based on real-life discussions between Jews and Christians,
reveals that the messianic theme was not among the topics favoured by the
protagonists. Thus Odo of Cambrai asserted that he was pressed into a debate with
a certain Leo the Jew (in 1105 or 1106) and later decided to cast his argument in the
form of a dialogue between the Jew and himself. The discussion, characteristically,
focused on the Incarnation and original sin.
24
Actual conversations with a Jew seem
to underlie Gilbert Crispins late eleventh-century Disputatio Iudei et Christiani.
Here, too, the topic of the Messiahs advent was to make but a eeting appearance,
overshadowed by more pressing concerns, such as the validity of the Jewish Law, or
Crispins application of St. Anselms argument for the necessity of the Incarnation to
the Jewish-Christian debate.
25
The anonymous author of the Dialogus inter
22
Die Disputationen, 166. Nunc itaque ostende michi sceptrum, ostende michi ducatum vel potestatem
ulam, quam ab illo tempore habuisti! Quod nullo modo ostendere neque probare poteris. Et si hoc verum
est, quod omnino verum, neque contra probare potes, indubitanter credere debes, quod Messias venit, et
cuncta, que de illo prophete dixerant, sit adimpletum. Unde te victum conteri debes, et si vis salvus eri,
Christianum te esse et baptizari oportet.
23
Die Disputationen, 166. Vere Messiam venisse credo, et cuncta, que prophete prophetaverunt, sit
adinpletum, et superatum me conteor, et Christianum me facere et batizare [sic] libenti animo volo.
24
See the recent translation and commentary by Irven M. Resnick, Odo of Cambrai, Disputatio contra
Judaeum Leonem nomine de adventu Christi lii Dei (On original sin and a disputation with the Jew, Leo,
concerning the advent of Christ, the son of God: two theological treatises) (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 85.
25
Abulaa and Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, xxvii, 17; Anna Sapir Abulaa, An attempt by
Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument in the Jewish-Christian debate, Studia
Monastica 26 (1984), 64-5.
292 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
Christianum et Iudeum de de Catholica, written between 1123 and 1148 and wrongly
attributed to William of Champeaux, also claimed that his work was a report of
a disputation he had with a Jew while on business. The work, modeled on Crispins
Disputatio, did touch upon the question of the Messiahs advent, but it was only one
of many points raised by the author. Topics such as the carnality of the Jewish Law,
the Trinity, the place of the crucixion in the scheme of salvation, baptism, original
sin, and the humanity of Christ, occupied more prominent places.
26
If one turns from the polemical works cast in dialogue form, to the Christian
twelfth-century contra Judaeos literature as a whole, the picture is much the same.
The question of the Messiahs advent makes an occasional appearance, but only as
a minor element in the debate that encompassed subjects as complex as the mystery
of the Trinity and the Christian sacraments, Jewish blindness in reading the Bible,
the abolition of the Old Law, the advent of the true Israel, and the divinity and
humanity of Jesus. To nd another contra Judaeos work dedicated in its entirety to
the question of the Messiah, one has to go as far back as the seventh century, to the
work by Saint Julian, bishop of Toledo, who argued for the messianic role of Jesus,
and against the belief of many Jews in Spain that the Messiah was to come in the
sixth millennium after the creation of the world.
27
In addition, in the eleventh
century, Fulbert of Chartres wrote a series of three sermons against the Jews, in
which he expounded Gen. 49:10, arming that the Messiah had already come
because there was no longer a Jewish state.
28
The Disputation of Ceuta is thus one of the rst works of high medieval anti-
Jewish polemics that break the ow of the dominant discourse by singling out the
messianic theme as the focal point of the debate. However, the Messiahs polemical
advent has been largely overlooked by scholars who are not accustomed to search
for changes in the subject matter of the voluminous twelfth-century contra Judaeos
literature.
29
There is a good reason for this. For centuries Christians attacked Jewish
beliefs, and by the high middle ages the time-tested arguments conveniently compiled
by Tertullian in the third century, and by Isidore of Seville in the seventh, were still
26
Anna Sapir Abulaa, Jewish-Christian disputations and the twelfth-century renaissance, Journal of
Medieval History 15 (1989), 105-25.
27
La controversia Judocristiana en Espana (desde los orgenes hasta el siglo XIII), ed. Carlos del Valle
Rodr guez; Homenaje a Domingo Munos Leon (Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cient cas;
Instituto de Filolog a, 1998), 124.
28
Bernard Blumenkranz, Les auteurs Chretiens latins du moyen age sur les juifs et le judasme (Paris:
Mouton & Co, 1963), 237-9. Another work with a messianic theme, supposedly written by an
eleventh-century rabbi from Morocco, has an uncertain provenance (Rabbi Samuelis marochiani de
adventu messiae quem judaei temere exspectant liber, PL 149). Ora Limor has recently argued that rabbi
Samuels epistle was written in the fourteenth century by its alleged translator, Alfonso Buenhombre,
a Spanish Dominican friar (The epistle of Rabbi Samuel of Morocco: A best-seller in the world of
polemics, in Contra Iudaeos, ed. Limor and Stroumsa, 177-94).
29
There is one exception: Robert Chazan argues that the Christian assault on the Jewish hope for future
redemption by a Messiah is the sign of a new aggressive missionising in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
(Undermining the Jewish sense of future: Alfonso of Valladolid and the new Christian missionizing, in
Christians, Muslims, and Jews in medieval and early modern Spain, ed. Mark Meyerson and Edward
English (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 179-94).
293 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
nding enthusiastic reception among Christian theologians eager to challenge Jewish
unbelief.
30
Continuing the early Christian tradition, these writers usually built their
arguments on a series of citations, or testimonia, drawn from the Jewish Bible (the
Christian Old Testament) to support the Christian claim that the Jewish Law was
superseded by the New Covenant ushered in by Jesus Christ.
31
Not surprisingly,
some passages proved to be particularly popular, and polemicists recycled them over
and over again, with an almost mechanical repetitiveness. For example, Genesis
49:10 used in the Ceuta Disputation (The sceptre shall not be taken away from Judah,
nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation
of nations), has been cited numerous times by Christian writers throughout the
middle ages to prove that contemporary Jewish powerlessness signied the Jews
failure to recognise Jesus as their redeemer: among many others, Isidore, Fulbert of
Chartres, Petrus Damiani, and Petrus Alfonsi relied on it.
32
Is it any wonder then that most scholars have found it hard to become excited at
the prospect of sifting through this grey mass of deeply traditional argumentation,
conservative to the core and clearly resistant to change? It did not help that in the
late 1960s Amos Funkenstein published a brilliant and very inuential article in
which he oered a working classication of Christian anti-Jewish polemics in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
33
In it, he dened the twelfth-century polemical
literature as the rst, or the older pattern of religious polemics e a stereotype
repetition of arguments usually going back to Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine.
34
Funkenstein also postulated that there emerged in the twelfth century a second type
of polemic, as Christians attempted to argue for the truth of the Christian faith sola
ratione, that is, through an invocation of reason rather than by a reliance on the
authority of the Bible.
35
The third and the fourth types, which involved the Christian
30
Tertullian, Liber Adversus Judaeos; Isidore of Seville, De de catholica ex veteri et novo testamento
contra Iudaeos ad Florentinam sororem suam (PL 83). Lukyn Williamss overview of medieval Christian
contra Judaeos literature remains useful in many respects: A. Lukyn Williams, Adversus Judaeos;
a birds-eye view of Christian apologiae until the renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1935). For a newer overview see Gilbert Dahan, La polemique chretienne contre le judasme au moyen age
(Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), translated into English as The Christian polemic against the Jews in the middle
ages, trans. Jody Gladding (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), or Heinz Schreckenberg,
Die christlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte (11.-13. Jh.), mit einer ikonographie des Judenthemas bis zum 4.
Laterankonzil (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991).
31
Dahan, The Christian polemic, 42.
32
Isidore, De de, PL 83; Petrus Damiani, Antilogus contra Judaeos, PL 145; Petrus Alfonsus, Dialogi, PL
157. On the Christian polemical use of Gen. 49:10 see Adolf Posnanski, Schiloh: ein beitrag zur Geschichte
der Messiaslehre, Part I, 302-24; 347-9.
33
Amos Funkenstein, Basic types of Christian anti-Jewish polemics in the late middle ages, Viator 2
(1971), 373-82. It appeared earlier in Hebrew in Zion 33 (1968), 125-44. See Simon Schwarzfuchs Religion
populaire et polemique savante: le tournant de polemique judeo-chretienne au 12e sie` cle, in Medieval
Studies in honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. Bat-Sheva Albert, Yvonne Friedman and Simon Schwarzfuchs
(Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1995) for a more recent analysis of the evolution of Christian and
Jewish inter-religious polemics.
34
Funkenstein, Basic types, 373.
35
Funkenstein, Basic types, 377.
294 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
utilisation of the Talmud (either by attacking it as heretical, or by using it to prove
the veracity of Christian claims), pointed away from the twelfth and towards the
thirteenth century.
36
What Funkensteins classication did, besides doing a great
service by stimulating research on the subject, was to leave most of the twelfth-
century Christian anti-Jewish polemical literature out of the loop. Indeed, why
should there be a pressing need to study something that belonged to an old pattern,
that is, was old-fashioned, unoriginal, lacklustre? To cite just a few examples,
historians characterised the Majorca Disputation as lacking any originality or
subtlety,
37
the Adversus Iudeos treatise by Joachim of Fiore as one more collection
of very banal testimonia on the principal themes of the controversy,
38
and Petrus
Damianis Antilogus as stagnant and naive.
39
In all fairness, one scholar has done
a great deal to advance the study of twelfth-century contra Judaeos literature. Anna
Sapir Abulaa focuses mainly on the treatises in the sola ratione tradition, and has
written extensively on the attempts by the followers of St. Anselm e Odo of
Cambrai, Gilbert Crispin, and Pseudo-William of Champeaux e to integrate
rational arguments into the dialogue with the Jews.
40
The trouble with her approach
is that it tends to inate the importance of rational argumentation. Already
Funkenstein noted that only a few Christian authors adopted sola ratione polemics
in the twelfth century.
41
Even Gilbert Crispin, who, according to Abulaa, in his
Disputatio Christiani cum Gentili aimed to go beyond the biblical testimonia and
formulate a purely rational argument in support of Christianity, showed a clear
preference for scriptural authority in the Disputatio Iudei et Christiani.
42
On the
other hand, the list of authors who employed Scripture-based argumentation in the
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is long and includes Christian scholars who
also applied reason to anti-Jewish argumentation: Peter the Venerable, Gilbert
Crispin, Pseudo-William of Champeaux, Peter Abelard, Guibert of Nogent, Petrus
Alfonsi, Rupert of Deutz, Peter of Blois, Joachim of Fiore, and Peter of Cornwall.
From the perspective of the twelfth century, therefore, Petrus Damianis eleventh-
century naive scripturalism appears as a portent of things to come.
Thus, while the twelfth-century polemics rather limited rationalistic turn has
received a lot of attention, the signs of a genuinely major shift in the Christian contra
Judaeos strategies have gone unnoticed. Even after Ora Limors edition and
annotation of the Ceuta Disputation, there was not exactly an outburst of interest.
36
Funkenstein, Basic types, 374, 379-81.
37
Norman Roth, Disputations, Jewish-Christian, in Medieval Jewish civilization: an encyclopedia, ed.
Norman Roth (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), 216.
38
Dahan, The Christian polemic, 48.
39
Jeremy Cohen, Scholarship and intolerance in the medieval academy: the study and evaluation of
Judaism in European Christendom, The American Historical Review 91 (1986), 596.
40
Abulaa, Jewish-Christian disputations, 105-25; Abulaa, An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of
Westminster, at rational argument, 55-74; Twelfth-century humanism and the Jews, in Contra Iudaeos,
ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa, 161-75. Her argument in the last article is developed further in her book
Christians and Jews in the twelfth-century renaissance (New York: Routledge, 1995).
41
Funkenstein, Basic types, 377.
42
Abulaa, An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, at rational argument, 56-7.
295 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
Limor herself did not think that it merited a separate study. She believed it worthy of
attention only insofar as it could help her highlight the text and the context of the
Disputation of Majorca, a thirteenth-century polemical work whose author
borrowed material from the Ceuta Disputation.
43
She claims, not unreasonably,
that [t]he Disputation of Majorca [being] almost three times as long as the previous
one, is more complicated in its action and is more original and interesting from the
point of view of content.
44
Yet, it is only in comparison to the Ceuta Disputation
that Limor is willing to call the Majorca text original. In fact, neither of the
disputations, she admits, is particularly striking. They are works of the old type,
and as such do not have much originality in them.
45
This is, therefore, where the
Ceuta Disputation stands at present: overshadowed by the Disputation of Majorca
and regarded as unoriginal, too short, and rightfully ignored. Norman Roth recently
drove what might appear to be the last nail into the con by describing the Ceuta
Disputation in the following terms: Like the Majorca disputation, it is naive and
stereotypical in its arguments that the messiah has already come, and like the later
disputation it ends with the conversion of the Jew. It hardly need be said that it is
entirely a literary ction.
46
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to pause for a moment over Norman Roths
statement. According to Roth, the Ceuta Disputation (1) revolves around the issue
of the coming of the Messiah and (2) is a literary ction. Therefore, he identies
precisely the two issues that make this disputation remarkable: its subject matter and
its claim to be a record of a real-life polemical confrontation between a Jew of Ceuta
and a Christian from Genoa. While in the absence of corroborative evidence one
cannot verify the claim of the disputations authenticity, I believe it should be taken
seriously. It is possible that the extraordinary emphasis on the Messiah in the Ceuta
Disputation was the result of the Christian protagonists meeting with the North
African Jew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of
considerable interest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the
discussion in Ceuta had or had not taken place, its text reveals a shift in the Christian
attitudes towards anti-Jewish polemics, a shift most likely inspired by real-life
discussions between Jews and Christians. To realise just how remarkable this
development was for the twelfth century, we need only remember the thirteenth-
century Dominican mission to the Jews, and the importance the messianic theme
assumed in the Orders public disputations. In other words, behind the seemingly
worn-out exegetical arguments of the Ceuta Disputation there hides a transition to
a more active, missionary attitude that changed the face of Christian anti-Jewish
polemics of the high middle ages.
43
Limor, Missionary merchants: three medieval anti-Jewish works from Genoa, Journal of Medieval
History 17 (1991), 43; Die Disputationen, 31. In both works Limor discusses the Ceuta Disputation in
conjunction with the Disputation of Majorca.
44
Limor, Missionary merchants, 38.
45
Ibid., 39.
46
Roth, Disputations, Jewish-Christian, in Medieval Jewish civilization, 216.
296 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
In his opening statement, the author of the Ceuta Disputation claims that the
work is a record of a real-life polemical confrontation: Here begins a disputation
between Guilielmus Alphachinus of Genoa and a certain very wise Jew by the name
of Abraham Mo, which took place in Ceuta.
47
Many twelfth-century authors of
Christian-Jewish disputations made the claim that their works were reports of real-
life discussions with Jews, and yet they either carefully reworded the Jewish
responses or used the ctional character of a Jew in order to advance a dialectical
argument in support of Christianity.
48
This said, even a cursory comparison of the
Ceuta text with some well-known disputations shows that the dierence in tone and
style is at least as dramatic as the shift in the subject matter. In the words of Ora
Limor, it has a decidedly amateurish quality.
49
It is not a learned scholastic treatise
of the Anselmian des quaerens intellectum type.
50
Its Latin has many syntactical
inconsistencies.
51
There are also mistranscriptions, involving missing letters and
dropped words, wrong nominal and pronominal cases and numbers, and verb
irregularities. Some quotations from the Vulgate are imprecise, and some are
mutilated almost beyond recognition, giving the reader an impression that they were
written from memory, without rst being checked against a copy of the Vulgate.
52
The text gives a distinct impression of being a rough draft never properly polished
and edited. It is possible that the author intended to rework the draft into
a disputation of a literary type, but whether he succeeded in this task at some later
date remains unknown, as only the one manuscript of the Disputation survives.
53
There is thus no indication that the hand of a Christian theologian is at work in the
text of the Ceuta Disputation. One can therefore conjecture that Guilielmus
Alphachinus was a layman, and that the Disputation is a record of his discussion
47
Incipit disputatio inter Guilielmum Alphachinum Ianuensem et quendam sapientissimum Iudeum Mo
Abraym nomine, que fuit facta Septe; Limor, Die Disputationen, 137.
48
R.J.Z. Werblowsky, Crispins Disputation, The Journal of Jewish Studies 11 (1960), 70; Abulaa and
Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster, xxvii.
49
Limor, Missionary merchants, 46.
50
Werblowsky, Crispins Disputation, 70, 74.
51
Limor, Die Disputationen, 11.
52
Of course there existed many versions of the Latin Bible in the twelfth century. It was precisely to
ensure uniformity of the text that abbot Stephen Harding produced his Cteaux bible in 1109 after
consulting Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts of the testaments (see Bible, and Bible, Cistercian in:
Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph Strayer (New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1983), vol. 2, 213,
219). However, the discrepancies between biblical quotations in the Ceuta Disputation and the Vulgate are
so signicant in many cases that it is dicult to explain them by the authors reliance on a variant text of
the Vulgate. Examples: Dan. 9:26: The manuscript: Cum duce venturo erit vastitas, et in ne belli destructa
desolacio; Die Disputationen, 145. The Vulgate: Et civitatem et sanctuarium dissipabit populus cum duce
venturo; et nis eius vastitas, et post nem belli statuta desolatio. Hos. 13:14: The manuscript: Eros [sic]
mors tuus, o inferne, et ero mors tua; Die Disputationen, 153. The Vulgate: Ero mors tua, o mors! Morsus
tuus ero, inferne! Ps. 44:12: The manuscript: Quia concupivit rex decorem tuum; Die Disputationen, 164.
The Vulgate: Et concupiscent rex decorem tuum. In two cases I was unable to locate the exact source of the
quotation: Scapulas meas et ignoravi, maxillas et alapas, Hieremias dixit; Die Disputationen, 151.
Suspendamus in lingo; Die Disputationen, 152.
53
Limor, Missionary merchants, 47; Limor argues that spoken Italian peeks through the Latin text,
especially in the use of con instead of cum; Die Disputationen, 11.
297 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
with a Jew of Ceuta. The Latin text was then the result of the author giving his own
vernacular (perhaps, Genoese) version to a cleric who translated it into Latin. Like
Ora Limor, I do not discern the presence of dierent levels of speech e the level of
the protagonist and that of the author e in the text of the Disputation.
54
The dialogue structure of the work is simple, with the Jew posing each question
and the Christian answering: The Jew said . Guilielmus said (Iudeus dixit .
Guilielmus dixit). It is a real dialogue, in that there is a continuous and direct verbal
exchange between the two parties, with no one side taking an inordinate amount of
time to expound a particular point, although e not unexpectedly e the Christians
allotment of time in the spotlight tends to be longer. The Jew prods the Christian,
and steers the debate in the desired direction: Tell me, Christian. (Dic michi,
Christiane.), and challenges the Christians point if his explanation is un-
satisfactory: How can what you say be? (Quomodo hoc potest esse, quod dicis?).
55
The argument is drawn almost entirely from scripture: in answer to the Jews
inquiries and challenges, the Christian adduces passages from the Old Testament.
56
The Christian protagonists knowledge of the Scriptures is supercially impressive,
but not very wide-ranging.
57
Most of his quotations (31) come from the Psalms (the
book a layman was most likely to know), followed by Isaiah (17) and Daniel (8). He
cites the other books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Leviticus, Jeremiah, Hosea,
Ezra, Micah, Amos, Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ezekiel, Zechariah) only once or
twice. There are also occasional references and allusions to the deuterocanonical
works (Wisdom of Solomon) and the New Testament (Matthew, 1 Corinthians). The
Christian could have been relying on his knowledge of the Bible, or e given his
dependence on Isidore, and possibly Petrus Damiani
58
and even Gilbert Crispin e
quoting from a work or several works from the contra Judaeos genre.
59
54
Limor, Missionary merchants, 47.
55
Die Disputationen, 142.
56
There are only a few exceptions. At one point, the Jew introduces an argument that at the time of the
Messiah the Roman river should run with oil (Nonne in tempore Messie . umen Rome, id est
summitas huius uminis, oleo discurere .). Limor nds a similar passage in Orosius, Historiae adversum
paganos VI, 18; Die Disputationen, 140. Guilielmuss interpretation of Prov. 30: 18-20 also departs from
scriptural exegesis, and appears to be his own invention; Die Disputationen, 160-3; Limor, Missionary
Merchants, 37.
57
Limor, Missionary merchants, 47.
58
Limor, Missionary merchants. Limor nds some similarities between the Ceuta text and Damianis
Letter (the works are found in the same manuscript), although she cannot prove a direct borrowing; Die
Disputationen, 10.
59
Given the fact that Damiani wrote his Antilogus as a letter to a layman, Honestus, it is possible that
vernacular versions of this work existed in the twelfth century. Crispins Disputatio Iudei et Christiani
enjoyed great popularity during this period: twenty manuscripts of it survive from the twelfth century.
Parts of the work were translated into Hebrew (Abulaa and Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, xxvii). It
is possible that vernacular translations existed as well. David Berger argues that there might have been
a collection of polemical material from various authors circulating in France in the twelfth century, which
contained quotations from Gilbert Crispin. See his Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob Ben Reuben:
a study in the transmission of medieval polemic, Speculum 49 (1974), 46.
298 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
The arguments put forward by the Jewish protagonist also reect the major trends
in the contemporary Jewish-Christian debate. Many of his objections to the
Christians claims gure prominently in the Jewish polemical works against
Christianity. For example, the Jews argument against the abrogation of
circumcision and the laws of kashrut, his reading of Isaiah 7:12-15 as referring to
a young girl rather than a virgin, and his case against the Messiahs divinity, all
appear in Nizzahon Vetus (Old Book of Polemic), a virtual anthology of Ashkenazic
polemic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
60
Especially striking is the Jews
adamant refusal to accept the Christians allegorical reading of the Prophets.
61
While
one can read these passages as a reection of the ancient Christian stereotype of the
literalist Jew incapable of interpreting the Scriptures spiritually, their presence can
very well be a deliberate strategy on the part of the Jewish protagonist. Elaborating
Yitzhak Baers original proposal that the focus on the plain meaning ( peshat) of the
Bible by the school of Rashi developed in response to the Christian allegorical
interpretations, Michael Signer argues that the Christian environment required
continued attention to the words, laws, and narratives of the Hebrew Bible which
Christians claimed as their own.
62
Similarly, Robert Chazan has shown that Saadia
Gaons eorts to eliminate all references to the Messiah from the reading of Daniel
9:24-27 was meant to preclude Christian use of the verse.
63
In an indication that real-
life discussions underlie the text of the Ceuta Disputation, the Jewish polemicist
makes a concerted eort to spurn allegory. Thus, his contention that the Shiloh of
Genesis 49:10 stands for a certain city echoes Rabbi Samuel ben Meirs (Rashbam,
c.1085-c.1174) interpretation of Shiloh as a city near Shechem.
64
His attempt at
literal exegesis is therefore in line with the contemporary Jewish exegetical strategies
conditioned by the Christian challenge.
In other words, argumentation that both the Jew and the Christian bring to the
table is not out of sync with their social standing or with the polemics current in
their respective communities. The available information on the identity of the
Christian protagonist provides further evidence in support of the Ceuta Disputa-
tions historicity. Although there is no explicit indication in the text of the
60
See The Jewish-Christian debate in the high middle ages: a critical edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with an
introduction, translation, and commentary, ed. David Berger (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1979), 67. See also pages 96, 100, 74-5, 200.
61
Die Disputationen, 157-9. Nonne, dixi tibi, Christiane, quia allegoriam numquam accipiam nec accepi
nec ad ipsa accipiendam in lege preceptum nullum habui? Et tu iterum me illam accipere constringis.
62
Michael Signer, Gods love for Israel: apologetic and hermeneutical strategies in twelfth-century
biblical exegesis, in Jews and Christians in twelfth-century Europe, ed. Michael Signer and John Van Engen
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 126, 129.
63
Robert Chazan, Daniel 9:24-27: exegesis and polemics, in Contra Iudaeos, ed. Ora Limor and Guy
Stroumsa, 147.
64
See Rabbi Samuel ben Meirs Commentary on Genesis, ed. Martin Lockshin (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin
Mellen Press, 1989), 359: Lo The scepter shall not depart from Judah: the kingship that has been granted
to him e that all twelve of his brothers shall bow low to him (vs. 8) e that greatness of his shall not cease
nor shall mehoqeq e power e cease from his progeny, until he, i.e. Judah, comes to Shiloh e in other words
until a Judaean king, Rehoboam the son of Solomon, comes to Shiloh, which is near Shechem, to renew
the monarchy.
299 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
disputation as to what Guilielmus Alphachinuss occupation was, his highly original
exposition of Proverbs 30:18-20 seems appropriate in the mouth of a merchant, who
knew from personal experience that weathering a storm in an open sea and trusting
God to guide him to a safe harbour was safer in the end than relying on blind luck
and trying to land before the storm had subsided:
J[ew] said: How do you explain the way of a ship in the sea?
G[uilielmus] answered: You know, when ships go through the sea, no road
appears or goes before, and God brings it into a safe harbour. This signies
good men who remain in the service of God to the end and perform their
works, and God similarly by an unknown road, escorts them into a safe
harbour, that is to eternal life.
J. said: Now and then certain ships are destroyed. Tell me what you
understand concerning these.
G. answered: These ships, which are destroyed, signify those men who believe
up to a point, and in time of temptations they go back, just as the ones who in
the beginning commit themselves to the service of God, and afterwards go back
to practice corrupt and perverse deeds. Such [men] were unwilling to remain in
an open sea, until the storm receded, [and] until a suitable weather/season blew
later to guide [them] to a safe harbour; neither were they willing to overcome
and avoid these diabolic temptations, but as abominable ones would persist in
other acts. And so they run into danger, and so they are shipwrecked upon
rocks or upon land, and are rightly destroyed, and will be tortured in eternal
damnation.
65
Ora Limors search in the State Archives of Genoa conrmed that Guglielmo
Alfachino was a real historical gure, and, in fact, a well-known merchant in this
maritime city. A series of notarial documents have information concerning
Alfachinos commercial activities between 1158 and 1205. Thus, an 1158 document
indicates his intention of travelling to the Crusader kingdom, while from 1205 come
two commenda contracts between Alfachino and the members of another well-known
Genoese family.
66
The text of the disputation contains several clues that add to its historicity by
linking it to a particular time and very particular historical circumstances. At one
point in the discussion, Alfachino mentions the passing of 1179 years since the
65
Die Disputationen, 161-62. It seems that Alphachinus drew his inspiration from the Wisdom of
Solomon. Comp. to Wis. 5:10 (And as a ship that passeth through the waves: whereof when it is gone by,
the trace cannot be found, nor the path of its keel in the waters), and Wis. 14:1-5 (Again, another designing
to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more
frail than the wood that carrieth him. For this the desire of gain devised, and the workman built it by his
skill. But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure
path among the waves, shewing that thou art able to save out of all things, yea though a man went to sea
without art. But that the works of thy wisdom might not be idle: therefore men also trust their lives even to
a little wood, and passing over the sea by ship are saved).
66
Limor, Missionary merchants, 37-8.
300 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
coming of the Messiah, which provides the basis for dating the disputation.
67
That
a Genoese merchant might nd himself in the Islamic city of Ceuta in 1179 is by no
means surprising. Until the middle of the twelfth century, the relations between
Genoa and the Almoravid rulers of North Africa were hostile.
68
However, in 1153 or
1154 the Genoese concluded a treaty with the ruler of the new, Almohad, dynasty
that they renewed every fteen years throughout the rest of the century (1161, 1176,
1191). In the second half of the twelfth century, the Genoese maintained their
position as the dominant European mercantile presence in Ceuta.
69
Between 1179
and 1200, the Genoese made thirteen documented voyages to Ceuta.
70
They
exported Flemish, north French and English woollen cloths, silver and armaments to
the Muslim world, while receiving some of the raw materials required in processing
these goods.
71
Whereas the identity of the Christian protagonist of the disputation can be readily
authenticated and his presence in Ceuta easily explained, the portrait of the Jewish
participant in the debate remains sketchy. His name is Abraham Mo, perhaps
a metathesis of Mo Abraham (Mo Abraym nomine), and he is considered to be very
wise (sapientissimum Iudeum).
72
He is not yet sixty years of age (sexaginta annos
nondum habes),
73
and has a large family in Ceuta ( lliis, et fratribus atque sororibus ac
cognates), who allegedly join him on his journey to the Holy Land.
74
Abrahams
remark at the end of the disputation, in response to Alfachinos suggestion that he be
baptised right there and then, sheds some light on the situation of the Jewish
community inCeuta under the rule of the Almohads. According toAbrahamMo, if the
Muslims were to nd out about his conversion to Christianity, both the Christian and
the Jewish communities in Ceuta would be in mortal danger.
75
Not only did Islamic
67
Nil mirum, si hoc ignoras, quia sexaginta annos nondum habes, et mille centum septuaginta et novem
anni conpleti sunt quod hoc evenit, et tam longe a Roma natus fuisti. And again: Unde debet intelligi,
quod mille centum septuaginta novem anni completi sunt, ut superius dixi, quod hoc evenit; Die
Disputationen, 140, 143.
68
Hilmar Krueger, Genoese trade with northwest Africa in the twelfth century, Speculum 8, No. 3
(July, 1933), 377.
69
Mohamed Cherif, Ceuta aux epoques almohade et merinide (Paris: Editions LHarmattan, 1996), 138-9.
70
Krueger, Genoese trade with northwest Africa in the twelfth century, 382. On the trade between
Genoa and the North African ports see also Georges Jehel, LItalie et le Maghreb au moyen age: conits et
echanges du VIIe au XVe sie`cle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), 58-68. On the growing
number of commercial contracts between Genoa and Ceuta (1160-1191), see David Abulaa, The two
Italies: economic relations between the Norman kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977), 113, 158, 166, 182.
71
David Abulaa, The role of trade in Muslim-Christian contact during the middle ages, Mediterranean
encounters, economic, religious, political, 1100-1550 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 8-10.
72
Die Disputationen, 137.
73
Die Disputationen, 140.
74
Die Disputationen, 166.
75
Die Disputationen, 166. Quoniam Mussumuti isti mali et pessimi sunt valde, et si hoc forte scirent, nos
et vos in periculo mortis erimus; et tantum pro me per totum mundum nollem evenire. One can also
interpret Abrahams words as a ruse to avoid immediate conversion.
301 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
authorities traditionally prohibit conversions to religions other than Islam,
76
but also
a particularly ferocious form of religious commitment characterised the Almohad
regime. According to some Jewish and Muslim sources, the Almohads gave Jews and
Christians under their rule the choice between conversion to Islam or death.
77
The
Spanish Jewish philosopher and exegete Joseph Ibn Aknin mentions the Jews of Fez,
Sijilmasa and Draa, who chose to sanctify Gods name by martyrdom.
78
At the same
time, many, perhaps most Maghrebi Jews saved their lives by converting to Islam.
79
The Jewish community of Ceuta gures prominently in the history of the Almohad
persecutions. By the time the Almohad regime was established in North Africa,
a Jewish community had existed in Ceuta for at least a century, its members, given the
importance of trade in the citys economy, probably engaged in commerce.
80
There are
reasons to suspect that the emergence of a Jewish community in Ceuta was in fact
connected to the development of North African trade with the Italian cities.
81
When in
the 1140s the Almohads rst emerged from the Atlas Mountains to start their march
into the northern coastal plain, the city of Ceuta was spared the rst onslaught.
82
Abd al-Mumin tried to capture the city in 1143, but had to retreat in the face of a
erce opposition.
83
By 1148 or early 1149, however, the city nally submitted to the
Almohadrule, andits Jewishinhabitants, like all the Jews andChristians whohappened
to be in the Almohads path, were given the choice between converting to Islam or
facing death.
84
Was the Jewish community in Ceuta completely wiped out in the late
1140s? The famous lament by Abrahamibn Ezra on the destruction of Andalusian and
North African Jewry, Ah a y arad (Oh, there descended), seems to suggest so:
Where is the protection for the congregation of Tlemsan?
Its glory is melted away
A bitter voice I raise over the fate of Ceuta and Mehnes;
I rend my garments for Darialready vanquished;
On one Sabbath day, the blood of sons and daughters was spilled like water.
85
76
Mark Cohen, Under crescent and cross: the Jews in the middle ages (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994), 61.
77
H. Z. Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), vol. I, 120.
78
Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in medieval Spain: cooperation and conict (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1994), 122.
79
Hirschberg, 193.
80
There is no rm evidence on the presence of Jews in Ceuta before the late eleventh century. See
Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa, 355. E. G. Cravioto attempts to prove the existence of
a Jewish community in Ceuta as early as the ninth century, but his argument is not convincing. See E.G.
Cravioto, Notas para la historia de los Judios en Ceuta (Siglos XI-XVI ) (Ceuta: Publicaciones Caja Ceuta,
1988), 16.
81
Hirschberg, 355.
82
Hirschberg, 118.
83
Cherif, Ceuta aux epoques almohade et merinide, 27-8.
84
Roger Le Tourneau, The Almohad movement in North Africa in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 59-60; Cravioto, Notas para la historia, 25.
85
Translated by Leon J. Weinberger in Twilight of a Golden Age: selected poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra
(Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1997), 97; Hirschberg, 123.
302 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
It is likely, however, that at least some Jews of Ceuta managed to survive the
massacre, like the two brothers, natives of Ceuta, whom Benjamin of Tudela met in
Genoa in the 1170s.
86
A letter of a learned silversmith, a refugee from Ceuta,
describing his misfortunes, survived in the Cairo Geniza. He escaped before the
Almohads took over the city.
87
Some surviving members of the Jewish community in Ceuta who converted to
Islam undoubtedly continued to practice Judaism in secret.
88
We know of at least
one forced convert from Ceuta who became a pupil of Maimonides and a famous
scholar in his own right e Joseph ben Yehuda Ibn Shimon ha-Maarabi.
89
Information about his early life is sketchy, but it seems that he was forcibly
converted to Islam as a youth, and subsequently studied philosophy, medicine, and
astronomy with Muslim teachers. While probably still in his twenties, Ibn Shimon
left Ceuta, went to Alexandria (possibly by way of Spain), and then to Fustat, where
he studied with Maimonides, who dedicated his Guide to the Perplexed to him.
By 1185 he was settled in Aleppo as a businessman and court physician.
90
Ibn
Shimons departure from Ceuta was part of a massive exodus of rabbis and
religious scholars from Morocco. Many left in the wake of Maimonides declaration
that a Jew must leave a country where he is forced to transgress the divine law.
Maimonides himself left Fez for this reason in 1165, eventually settling in Egypt.
91
The respected leaders departure almost certainly prompted many others to action,
as did his stern advice in the Epistle on Forced Conversion, circulated among the
Jews of North Africa:
He should on no account remain in a place of forced conversion; whoever
remains in such a place desecrates the divine name and is nearly as bad as
a wilful sinner; as for those who beguile themselves, saying that they will
remain until the Messiah comes to the Maghreb and leads them to Jerusalem, I
do not know how he is to cleanse them of the stigma of conversion.
92
Assuming that the Jewish protagonist of the Ceuta Disputation was indeed an
historical gure, his decision to weather the Almohad storm and to wait for the
imminent coming of the Messiah in Ceuta was put to severe test after the arrival of
a clever Genoese merchant. If one is to believe the claim advanced in the text of the
disputation, in the end Abraham Mo changed his mind, and chose to embark on
a Genoese ship sailing for Palestine (eight years before Christian Jerusalem fell to
86
Limor, Die Disputationen, 6.
87
S.D. Goitein, A mediterranean society: The Jewish communities of the Arab World as portrayed in the
documents of the Cairo Geniza, vol. V: The Individual (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 76-7.
88
E.G. Cravioto, Notas para la historia de los Judios en Ceuta, 25.
89
The Westerner; not to be confused with Joseph ben Yehuda Ibn Aknin who never left Spain, and was
not Maimonides student. On the confusion between the two Josephs, perpetuated since the nineteenth
century up to the present, see Norman Roths article Ibn Aknin, Joseph b. Judah, in Medieval Jewish
civilization: an encyclopedia, 341-8. Many thanks to Prof. Mark Cohen for the reference.
90
Roth, Ibn Aknin, Joseph b. Judah, 344; Hirschberg, 359.
91
Hirschberg, 137.
92
Quoted in Hirschberg, A history of the Jews in North Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), vol. I.
303 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
Saladin), in order to be baptised in the Jordan river.
93
If this is what happened, it
would have been an unconventional way for a Jew to escape the Mussumuti isti mali,
but it would t the general pattern of Jewish emigration from North Africa in the
second half of the twelfth century.
I believe that the messianic theme of the Ceuta Disputation owes its prominence
to the ad hoc circumstances of real-life discussions in Ceuta and perhaps elsewhere in
the Mediterranean. In other words, the discussion depicted in the text of the
Disputation went in the particular direction it did because the Genoese merchant
discovered what kind of arguments were likely to keep a Jews attention, and perhaps
even convince him in the end. In fact, the Jew of Ceuta is portrayed as actively
inuencing the course of the disputation, and constantly prodding his opponent to
return to the question of the Messiah when the Christian strayed too far from the
matter. The dispute took place at the time when messianic hopes among the Jews ran
high. One need not go farther than Maimonides Epistle to Yemen to realise that the
Jew of the Ceuta Disputation was not alone in the intensity of his concern. Written
in 1172, the Epistle addresses a community demoralised by the Almohad
persecutions and caught o-guard by the pretences of false messiahs. Maimonides
acknowledges that the suerings of the recent years were terrible:
Remember, my coreligionists, that on account of the vast number of our sins
God has hurled us into the midst of this people, the Arabs, who have persecuted
us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us, as
God has forewarned us: Our enemies themselves shall judge us [Deut. 32:31].
Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.
94
It is no wonder that a persecuted people would be eagerly anticipating an
imminent arrival of the Messiah, for a drowning man catches at a straw.
95
Nevertheless, Maimonides urges his fellow Jews not to give ear to those who claim
that the Jews should abandon the commandments and follow a false Messiah. In
particular, Maimonides exhorts the Jews not to believe the claims of Christians who
ascribe messianic powers to Jesus of Nazareth:
You know that the Christians falsely ascribe marvellous powers to Jesus the
Nazarene, may his bones be ground to dust, such as the resurrection of the
dead and other miracles. Even if we granted this for the sake of argument, we
should not be convinced by their reasoning that Jesus is the Messiah. For we
can bring a thousand proofs from Scripture that it is not so even from their
point of view.
96
93
. con liis et fratribus atque sororibus ac cognates in navem Ianuensium ascendit, et Hierosolimam
perrexit, Christi nomine se in Iordane umine baptizavit; Die Disputationen, 166.
94
Maimonides, Epistles of Maimonides: crisis and leadership, trans. by Abraham Halkin (Philadelphia:
The Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 126.
95
Ibid., 120.
96
Ibid., 126.
304 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
The messianic assertions put forward by the Christians are not the only danger he
sees. A number of fellow Jews had appeared in recent years claiming to be the long-
expected Messiah. Maimonides refers to the incident in Yemen that was still
troubling the Jewish community there at the time of his writing.
97
Another false
Messiah, he says, appeared about fty years before in Andalusia.
98
But even as
Maimonides argues that these men lack the characteristics of a true Messiah, he tells
the Jews not to lose hope, for the multiplication of these pretenders itself might be
the signal of the imminent arrival of the Anointed One.
99
It was to help Jews like Abraham Mo, to strengthen people in their faith and put
them on their feet, that Maimonides wrote the Epistle.
100
He sensed their
vulnerability to potential missionising, especially on the sensitive issue of the eagerly
anticipated arrival of the Messiah. In the light of Maimonidess concerns, Guglielmo
Alfachino deserves some credit for discovering and exploiting the Achilles heel of his
opponents position. In a matter of decades, what the Jewish sage had feared and the
Christian merchant had anticipated came to pass. By the time Guglielmos
countryman, Inghetto Contardo, debated faith with the Jews of Majorca in 1286,
the Messiah had become the centrepiece of the Christian missionising eort.
101
Unfortunately, there is no evidence to show that the Ceuta Disputation made
a discernible impact on the direction of the Christian anti-Jewish discourse. Given
the fact that it survives in a single manuscript, any direct inuence is unlikely.
102
Its
innovative argumentation is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the change in
Christian strategies. In all likelihood, there were other Christian missionaries like
Alfachino e amateur as well as professional e who engaged Jews in debates and
drew similar conclusions about their vulnerabilities. One can hypothesise that the
change was the result of their collective eorts.
What is certain is that there is a direct link between the Ceuta Disputation and the
Disputation of Majorca. Despite being separated from the Ceuta Disputation by
more than a hundred years, the 1286 debate owes a great deal to its antecedent. Like
Alfachino, Inghetto Contardo, the protagonist of the Majorca Disputation, was
a merchant from Genoa, and a real historical gure.
103
Like the earlier disputation,
the Majorca debate belongs to the old pattern of Christian anti-Jewish polemics,
even though its author is aware of the Barcelona Disputation of 1263, where the
Talmud was utilised to support the Christian claims.
104
The borrowings from the
97
Ibid., 123.
98
Ibid., 128.
99
Ibid., 130.
100
Ibid., 131.
101
The text of the Majorca Disputation was published by Ora Limor in the same volume as the Ceuta
Disputation. Die Disputationen zu Ceuta (1179) und Mallorca (1286): zwei antijudische schriften aus dem
mittelalterlichen Genua, ed. Ora Limor. It also appeared with a French translation and an introduction by
Gilbert Dahan, as Inghetto Contardo, Disputatio contra Iudeos: controverse avec les juifs (Paris: Les Belles
Lettres, 1993).
102
Limor, Missionary merchants, 47.
103
Ibid., 40.
104
Ibid., 44; Dahan, Inghetto Contardo, 26.
305 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
Ceuta text are extensive: Ora Limor found that whole passages in the Majorca text
(about 1200 words out of a total of 20,000) were transcribed from the earlier
disputation; so it is clear that the writer had the text of the Ceuta Disputation
available to him.
105
Nevertheless, as Limor is careful to point out, most of the
Majorca texts content is original, and the disputation itself is more complex than the
Ceuta debate, consisting, as it does, of four parts, with each part dedicated to
Inghettos discussions with dierent Jews at various locations in Majorca.
106
The
theme that unies all of these mini-discussions, however, is the same theme that
underlies the Ceuta Disputation ethe question of the coming of the Messiah. Both of
the scholars of the Majorca Disputation, Limor and Dahan, emphasise the centrality
of the messianic theme in this document.
107
Limor notes the importance accorded to
the topic of the Messiah in the conversion of one of Inghettos opponents, Astruc
Isaiah, who declares himself to be persuaded by the Christians argument that the
Messiah has come: And now I truly recognise that the Messiah has come in our Lord
Jesus Christ (Et nunc uere cognosco Messiam uenisse Dominum nostrum Ihesum
Christum).
108
Limor even speculates that the prominence of this theme reects the fact
that the messianic expectations were widespread among the Jews at the time.
109
Unlike the Ceuta and the Majorca Disputations, the famous Barcelona
Disputation of 1263 was not a voluntary discussion, but a forced confrontation
that took place at the court of King James I of Aragon, during a major Dominican
missionary campaign against the Jews. Rabbi Moses ben Nachman of Gerona was
summoned to debate religious matters with Friar Paul Christian, a Jewish convert to
Christianity. The Disputation was tightly controlled. The Christian masterminds
dictated the rules and set the agenda for the debate, stipulating explicitly that the
truth of Christianity was not to be placed in dispute. The Jewish side was thus
reduced to the passive position of deecting the Christian attack.
110
On the very rst
day, Rabbi Moses ben Nahman heard the following agenda declared by Friar Paul:
Friar Paul proposed to the said rabbi that, with the aid of God, he would prove
from writings shared and accepted by the Jews the following contentions, in
order: that the Messiah, who is called Christ, whom the Jews anticipate, has
surely come already; also that the Messiah, as prophesied, should be divine and
human; also that he suered and was killed for the salvation of mankind; also
that the laws and ceremonials ceased and should have ceased after the advent
of the said Messiah.
111
105
Limor, Missionary merchants, 43; Die Disputationen, 31.
106
Limor, Missionary merchants, 38.
107
Dahan, Inghetto Contardo, 48; Limor, Die Disputationen, 37.
108
In Dahans edition, Inghetto Contardo, 258.
109
Die Disputationen, 37.
110
Robert Chazan, The Barcelona Disputation of 1263: Christian missionizing and Jewish response,
Speculum 52 (1977), 825. See also Chazan, Barcelona and beyond: the Disputation of 1263 and its aftermath
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
111
Robert Chazan, The Barcelona Disputation of 1263: Christian missionizing and Jewish response,
Speculum 52 (1977), 826.
306 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307
In this well-articulated and condent agenda, one hears a distant echo of the Ceuta
Disputation. Although less lucidly expressed, the same essential elements were
already present there: the coming of the Christian Messiah, the prophecies of his
arrival, the abrogation of the Jewish Law after his advent, the proofs of his divine
nature and his suering, and the promise of messianic redemption. A major change
has taken place, however, since Abraham Mo pestered the Genoese Christian with
questions about the Messiah. By the late thirteenth century the time had come for the
Christian to ask, and for the Jew to respond. Towards the very end of the Ceuta
Disputation, Guglielmo Alfachino adopted a more aggressive attitude, demanding to
see some proof of Jewish leadership. In Barcelona, this kind of Christian assertiveness
ruled the day. It appears that in the almost hundred years that separated Barcelona
from Ceuta, the Christians internalised the lessons they learned from debating Jews
like Abraham Mo, moulding Jewish weaknesses into Christian strengths, and Jewish
doubts into an active missionary agenda. The precise mechanism of this trans-
formation awaits further research.
112
It is already clear, however, that by focusing on
the messianic theme polemicists like Guglielmo Alfachino helped usher in a new age
in Christian conversionary eorts. Before long, professional missionaries arrived on
the North African shores. In 1219 the Franciscans set up a mission in Morocco, and
in 1227 some of their brethren found martyrdom in Ceuta.
113
All that remains is to
conclude that when the Messiah came in the twelfth century, he did not come alone:
the Mission followed closely in his wake.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Prof. William Chester Jordan, my teacher and supervisor,
for introducing me to the Ceuta Disputation, and for being such a patient and
attentive critic. I also thank the two anonymous readers of this articles rst version
for their critical comments, which have greatly improved its argument.
Maya Soifer was born in Moscow, Russia and received her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in History
from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. She is currently a PhD candidate in Medieval History
at Princeton University, working on her dissertation, tentatively entitled The Jews of the Milky Way:
Jewish-Christian Relations in Northern Castile (twelfth to fourteenth centuries), under the supervision of
Professor William Chester Jordan.
112
David Berger posed the problem of the connection between the twelfth-century polemical works and
the mid thirteenth-century missions to the Jews in Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian contacts in
the polemical literature of the high middle ages, The American Historical Review 91 (1986), 577.
113
Robert Burns, Christian-Islamic confrontation in the West: the thirteenth-century dream of
conversion, The American Historical Review 76 (1971), 1388.
307 M. Soifer / Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005) 287e307