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E . AN N M ATTE R &
LE S LE Y S M IT H zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR

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ST. VICTOR, TWELFTH-CENTURY SCHOLARS, AND BEYOND zyxw

Essays in Honor of Grover A. Zinn, Jr.

zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Grover A. Zinn, Jr. University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

 Christ or Antichrist? 343

arship.? But, as this chapter will show, the study of the prophetic texts in
particular not only brought Christians and Jews together; it could also di-
vide them sharply.
Christians, starting with the authors of the New Testament, have always
F R AN S read the Hebrew Bible, which they call the Old Testament, as a text that re-
V AN LlER E zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
ferred to and was eventually fulfilled in the messiahship of Jesus. The per-
sistence of Jews who did not believe this was, of course, a theological prob-
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
lem. It led Christians to the conviction that Jews did not know how to read
their own scriptures properly. This conviction can be seen in the personifi-
cation of Judaism in the Middle Ages as Synagoga, a blindfolded woman,
blind to the spiritual dimension of scripture. For Christians, the mystery of
salvation throughJesus Christ was the hermeneutical key to unlocking the
scriptures. Without this key, they argued, the Jews could not see the whole
picture. This problem of Jewish blindness, however, had an eschatological
solution. Augustine, for instance, was convinced that God himself had only

15
Christ or A ntichrist? zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
blinded the Jews temporarily, to serve as a witness to Christian truth through
their very presence, until at the end times they, too, would be converted and
The Jewish Messiah in Twelfth-Century
share fully in God's grace.3
Christian Eschatology
With the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, and the
Christianization of Europe during the Middle Ages, Christians seemed to
have history..on their side. For many Christians, and even some Jews, the ap-
parent triumph of the church through tribulations and persecutions, con-
trasted with the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent Jewish Dias-
pora, confirmed the notion that God favored the Christians and punished the
In the twelfth century, a time of great cultural and educational Jews with eternal exile for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. The de-
renewal in Western Europe, the biblical prophets were studied as never be- struction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans was seen as an important
fore by both Jews and Christians.' Christians saw them as proof of the mes- "proof" of this divine punishment. The ruined Temple, for Christians, was a
siahship of Jesus Christ, and Jews saw them as messianic texts offering hope visible sign of God's wrath towards the Jews and favor towards the Christians."
for redemption in an age that seemed increasingly characterized by Chris- Jews, of course, had their own eschatological beliefs. They believed
tian triumphalism. In the same period, Christian scholars such as Hugh and that a Messiah would arise from the posterity of David to liberate Israel
Andrew of St. Victor gave the study of the Bible a new direction by turn- \ from oppression and judge the nations for their wickedness. This Jewish es-
ing to Jewish exegetes for help ~ith the textual interpretation of the Old chatology included several historical elements: the end of the Roman Em-
Testament. This Christian-Jewish encounter over the interpretation of scrip- pire, or its successor, Christendom; the end of the Diaspora; and, not sur-
ture is an exciting moment in history, an early exploration of the shared prisingly, the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem that the Romans had
ground between Jews and Christians, marking the beginning of a new destroyed. Rabbinic Judaism even added a certain vengeful element to this
textual and historical approach to the biblical text within Christian schol- messianism: the Messiah would take revenge on the present oppressors

342
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F rans van LieTe zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
and turn them into the oppressed. For Jews living in Christian lands, the
prospects for final redemption must have seemed bleak. At the time of the
eleventh-century Gregorian reform of the church, Christianity had more
reason to feel self-confident than ever before, and the crusades, which had
brought disaster upon the Jewish communities of the Rhineland, seemed to
underscore this idea of a triumphalist Christendom. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
In reaction (as stated
above), Jews held on to the belief that the Messiah would bring about the
end of the rule of Christendom, restore Jewish rule in Jerusalem, and wreak
vengeance on the enemies of the Jews. This Jewish messianism drew on
several prophetic biblical texts, the same texts that in Christian circles were
often read as confirmation of the messiahship of Jesus. These texts could
provide Jews with hope for the future, and even some glee over the future
downfall of their present oppressors.'
Christians were aware of this Jewish eschatology, and this chapter will
explore the various ways in which Christian scholars tried to come to terms
with it. Some of these were friendlier to the Jews than others. Some Chris-
tian exegetes emphasized the traditional Augustinian idea that the Jews were
blinded, but that they would be enfolded in God's grace at the end of time."
In contrast, Jerome took a fairly polemical stance against the Jews. He pre-
sented a Christological reading of these Old Testament prophecies as his
alternative to the Jewish messianic reading, and he emphasized that Jews
perpetuated their own blindness when they read these passages as prophe-
cies about the coming of the Messiah.' Some medieval Christian exegetes,
most notably Haimo of Auxerre (d. 875?) and the authors of the Glossa or-
dinaria, expanded Jerome's exegesis on this point. For them, this vengeful
Messiah the Jews expected looked, suspiciously, not like Christ but like
Antichrist. This notion seems to have become commonplace by the twelfth
century. The purpose of this chapter is to explore some of the dynamics of
Christian exegesis on this point, and show how it influenced the growing
relations between Christians and Jews in this period.
The legend of Antichrist is as old as Christianity itself.8 In its rudimen-
tary form, it goes back to 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where Paul mentions a "final
rebellion against God;' "wickedness in human form;' a man who "enthrones
himself in the Temple of God." But this adversary would not be revealed
until the "restraint that is holding him back" was removed from the scene.
Christian interpreters commonly identified this "restraint" as the rule of the
Christ or Antichrist? 345
Roman Empire. The Antichrist myth was given its basic narrative form in
the seventh century by Ps.-Methodius, a Syriac Christian who lived at the
time of the earliest Muslim conquest, and painted a compelling scenario,
combining the notion of Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians with several other bib-
lical apocalyptic elements, such as the invasion of the barbarian peoples Gog
and Magog. He also added his own extrabiblical elements, such as the notion
of the last emperor, who would yield his power in Jerusalem to the demonic
adversary of Christ. This tradition appeared in the West in the tenth-century
writings of Adso of Montmoutier-en-Der (d. 992) and found widespread res-
onance in apocalyptic writings and biblical commentaries."
The role of the Jews in this Antichrist myth has been ambivalent.
Although Jews were often associated with the Antichrist, or seen as his
agents, the Antichrist himself was rarely Jewish. More popular was the idea
of the Holy Roman emperor or (more often) the pope as the Antichrist.!O The
Augustinian idea that the Jews would convert in time before the coming of
Christ is prevalent in most end-time scenarios. In the twelfth-century Play
of Antichrist, this conversion even secures them martyrdom as they witness
against Antichrist. Mter initially mistaking him for the expected Messiah,
the Jews become the first ones to unmask Antichrist as a fraud, and they are
subsequently martyred by his agents. Some have argued that the play's au-
thor had the recent.martyrdom of the Jewish communities in the Rhineland
in the wake of the Crusades in mind, and tried to come to terms with this
atrocity.'! Not all speculation about the end times was tolerant towards the
Jews, however. Some authors, such as Peter Comestor (d. 1179), identified
the apocalyptic peoples of Gog and Magog as Jews, namely, the ten lost
tribes.l? The most anti-Jewish variant of Christian eschatology, the idea that
the Jewish Messiah was the very same as the Christian Antichrist, circulated
for the first time in Jerome's commentaries. It was eagerly picked up and ex-
panded on by the Carolingian exegete Haimo of Auxerre, and it resonated in
twelfth-century exegetical sources as well. It represents a little-studied chap-
ter in the history of Christian anti-Jewish polemic.
Haimo of Auxerre was a prolific biblical commentator. For a long time,
the bulk of his work has been misattributed to Haimo of Halberstadt. Little
is certain about Haimo of Auxerre's biography, and most of his work still
awaits critical editions. He left commentaries on Genesis, Deuteronomy,
the Song of Songs, and most of the prophetic books, as well as the Gospels,
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Pauline Epistles, and the Apocalypse. His interest in Antichrist, as well as
his anti-Judaism, have only received serious scholarly attention in the last
decades." In his commentary on the twelve Minor Prophets, Haimo shows
himself clearly aware of the vengeful side of Jewish eschatological expecta-
tions. It is unlikely that he knew these ideas from firsthand experience, how-
ever. He could have easily found them in the commentaries of Jerome,
which he used at length as a source in his commentary. In any case, the im-
plications of the "vengeful messianism" of Jewish exegetes clearly troubled
him. In response, he identified this Jewish Messiah with the Christian An-
tichrist, the evil ruler who would precede the second coming of Christ. As
was said above, Haimo picked up this idea from Jerome's commentary
on Obadiah. Obadiah 17 reads, "On Mount Zion there shall be a remnant
which will be saved, and Jacob will possess those that dispossessed them:'
The entire book of Obadiah is a diatribe of revenge against Edom, which
Obadiah predicts will be devoured by the house of Jacob; in common Jew-
ish exegesis, as Jerome noted, Edom stood for Rome, or later Christianity
in a more general sense. On verses 17-18, Jerome commented: "all these
things ... the Jews promise for themselves in the future, when they will re-
ceive the Antichrist as their Messiah"!" In his own commentary on this pas-
sage, Haimo quotes Jerome almost literally:
All the things we said before and which we are about to say, the Jews,
dreaming up falsehoods, refer to the time of the Antichrist, and whatever
we have interpreted as against Edom, they dream up against the Roman
empire.""
There is a certain paradox in the Christian reception of the Jewish in-
terpretation of these passages. Jerome, and Haimo with him, disagree that
this passage actually refers to the end times at all: "We say that this hap-
pened according to the historical sense under Zerubbabel, or certainly is
being fulfilled mystically in the church on a daily basis.?" But, although
they argue that these prophetic passages are not referring to future events
at all, they do give credence to the Jewish belief in the future tribulation
of Christians and destruction of the (Holy) Roman Empire. There would
come a figure to bring about both; but this figure would not be the Messiah
(who, after all, had already appeared, in the person of Jesus Christ), but his
antithesis. The idea that Jews were expecting not the Messiah but Anti-
Christ or Antichrist? 347
christ proved popular with Hairno; we see it surface elsewhere in his com-
mentary as well. In those passages that Jewish exegetes read as evidence for
their eschatological expectations, Haimo not only cited Jerome in his rejec-
tion of these expectations, but reiterated the notion that this "Messiah" was
Antichrist more frequently than Jerome had done.
Two examples will illustrate how Haimo expanded on Jerome's notion.
Zephaniah 3:8 reads: "Wherefore expect me, says the Lord, in the day of my
resurrection that is to come; for my judgment is to assemble the Gentiles
and to gather the kingdoms, and to pour upon them my indignation, all my
fierce anger." Jerome comments: "The Jews refer this passage to the coming
of the Christ [the Messiah] that they hope will come." In his opinion, how-
ever, Christians "who follow not the letter that kills, but that spirit that makes
alive" interpret this verse as referring to the present, the time of the church.
Haimo goes one step further in his rendering of the Jewish interpretation; he
says that the Jews, and nostri Judaizantes ("the Judaizers among us;' a term
he most likely picked up from Jerome's commentary, to refer to Christians
who believed in the coming of a thousand-year reign of Christ before the
Last Judgment) refer this to the time of "their" Christ, who really is Anti-
christ.'? On Zechariah 8:23, which describes how ten Gentiles will take
hold of the robe of a Jew and say, "we will go with you, for God is with you;'
Jerome had commented that "some of the Jews believe that this was fulfilled
under Zerubbabel and the time after Zerubbabel; but some delay this to the
future, when they expect their Christ to come:' Haimo follows Jerome's in-
terpretation fairly closely, except that he replaced the words "their Christ"
with "Antichrist": "Even though the Jews refer this to the time of Antichrist,
we say that this happened at the time of the coming of our Lord, savior,
when he was born of the Yirgin Mary."!8 Thus, while Haimo did not want
to give too much credence to these Jewish messianic interpretations, at
the same time he seemed to have a nagging fear that the Jewish interpreters
were not altogether mistaken in their notion that the future held some hard
times for the Christian church; their desire for vengeance on the church
made the Jews somehow fall into line with the Antichrist that Haimo ex-
pected would appear at the end of times.
It was through the inclusion oí Haimo's commentary in the Glossa ordi-
naria that this idea became commonplace in the twelfth century. The Glossa
ordinaria was a compilation of patristic commentary, neatly formatted to fit
in the margin and between the lines of the biblical text. In the twelfth century,
348 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Frans van Líere
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
this Glossa was a relatively new tool in biblical exegesis; by its very layout it
offered a new approach to the biblical text by making patristic exegesis di-
rectly accessible through the use of marginal and interlinear annotations."
The Glossa on the Minor Prophets was commonly ascribed to the French
scholar Gilbert of Auxerre, or Gilbertus Universalis (d. 1135),20 but it drew
heavily on the work of the other scholar from Auxerre, Hairno. The pas-
sage in Obadiah, above, for instance, was incorporated into the Glossa
straight from Haimo." The Glossa did not always follow Hairno's interpreta-
tion strictly (the examples cited above, from Zephanaiah and Zachariah, are
closer to the wording of Jerome than Hairno: the Jews here are said to expect
"their Christ;' rather than Antichrist). But in many places, the Glossa ex-
panded Jerome's interpretations in the same way as Haimo had done. In
Hosea 2:21, for instance, "It will come to pass in that day; I will hear, says the
Lord;' Jerome concluded his exegesis with the observation that all the things
described here "the Jews and our Judaizers expect after the coming of An-
tichrist, at the end of this world:'22 The Glossa paraphrases Jerome rather
freely, using some phrases borrowed from Hairno:
According to the literal meaning, one can understand that at the advent of
Christ, these temporal goods are promised to the believers, so that, for the
sake of him who is the seed of God, all things run their course, as they
were established from the beginning, and serve the needs of mankind.
But then the Glossa adds the line: "And yet the Jews expect after all these
goods the physical coming of Antichrist.Y' The self-evidence with which
the Glossa equated the Jewish eschatological expectation of the Messiah
with the coming of Antichrist seems to suggest that, by the twelfth century,
Haimo's ideas had become commonplace. At the coming of Antichrist, so
Christians thought, the Jews would flock to him in droves, because they mis-
took him for the Messiah that they had been expecting, due to their faulty
interpretation of the prophetic texts."
How did all these ideas affect the interactions between Jews and Chris-
tians in the twelfth century? One twelfth-century Christian exegete actually
took the remarkable step of consulting Jews about the interpretation of
the Old Testament prophets, and his own treatment of the Old Testament
prophetic books may shed some light on this question. Andrew of St. Victor
Christ or Antichrist? 349
was a student of the well-known teacher and theologian Hugh of St. Victor
(d. 1141), at the abbey of the same name just outside the walls of medieval
Paris, and Andrew has traditionally been seen as a figure who bridged the di-
vide between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages." He has left us a
fairly limited oeuvre: his works include only commentaries on the Old Tes-
tament. InzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
a world in which the meaning of scripture was largely established
by an allegorical, mystical reading of the biblical text, Andrew dedicated
himself almost entirely to a reading of scripture in its literal sense, limiting
himself strictly to literary, and sometimes historical, comments on the bibli-
cal text, often using Jewish sources to make his point. He eschewed any al-
legorization or doctrinal interpretation of the text. Andrew's commentary
on the Minor Prophets is partly an excerpt from Jerome's commentary on
the same books, but in excerpting from Jerome, Andrew limits himself to Je-
rome's comments on the literal sense, and overlooks most of his more alle-
gorical comments. Andrew also used the Glossa ordinaria, both to comple-
ment and to summarize [erome." At times, however, Andrew offered his
own alternative interpretation of a passage to the one excerpted from Jerome
or the Glossa. Often, these passagescontained materials that he had obtained
from Jewish sources. Many of them can be identified as coming from the
commentaries of Rashi (d. 1105), and also from Andrew's contemporary Jo-
seph Kara, while ~ome of them were not written down until a generation
after Andrew, in the commentaries of Radak (d. 1235). This indicates that
Andrew must have heard this exegesis, rather than seen it in writing: most
likely he derived his information by speaking directly with his Jewish con-
temporaries. The synagogue in Paris after all was a short walk from both the
cathedral of Notre Dame and the Abbey of St. Victor." Thus Andrew prob-
ably had firsthand knowledge of the Jewish eschatological traditions that
Haimo and the Glossa knew only indirectly, through Jerome.
While pathbreaking in its exploration of the Jewish exegetical tradition,
Andrew's commentary on the Minor Prophets is representative of the very
ambivalent attitude of twelfth-century Christians towards Jewish learning.
One of the most striking characteristics of Andrew's interpretation of the
Minor Prophets is that he eschewed the more common Christian explana-
tions, which looked for a Christological meaning in these texts. For Andrew,
passages that his fellow Christians interpreted Christologically did not al-
ways necessarily refer to Christ according to their literal sense. There is plenty
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of evidence that Andrew's contemporaries were offended by this exegeti-
cal method. In the late I I 50s, Andrew's contemporary Richard of St. Victor
wrote a long refutation of Andrew's exegesis of Isaiah 7: 14 ("A Virgin shall
conceive"), which Andrew interpreted simply as a young woman, in this case,
the young wife of Isaiah the prophet himself. To strip this passage of its Chris-
tological meaning, said Richard, was scandalous and dangerous.28
In the same way, when he came to interpret the Old Testament texts
that Jerome had applied to Christ, Andrew often read them in a strictly his-
torical sense. An example can be found in the Canticle of Habbakuk, Hab-
bakuk 3:3: "God comes from the South; the Holy One from Mount Paran:'
For Jerome, this passage was a prophecy about the birth of the savior in
Bethlehem and the coming of Christ incarnate in judgment against sin-
ners. He even cited Jewish sources to support his Christological reading.
The Ethiopians whose tents are crushed in verse 7 are the demons, de-
feated at the coming of Christ. Connecting verse 17 (''The fig tree has no
buds") with the common interpretation of the parable of the fig tree in
Matthew 21:19, where the fig tree stood for the unbelieving Jews, Jerome
explained that this meant that, at the coming of Christ, the nonbelieving
Jews would be ruined, while the believing elect would be saved.ê? Andrew,
after excerpting this explanation from Jerome, offers two alternatives to
Jerome's Christological reading. The first one is largely borrowed from con-
temporaneous Jewish sources, such as Rashi.ê" This reading interpreted the
passage as a description of the liberation ofIsrael from Egypt. Mount Paran
is Mount Sinai; the Ethiopians are the allies of the Egyptians; and the text
mentions the rivers and waters being cleft, which are references to the
crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan. Verse Il, "The Sun forgets to run
its course;' refers to the time of Joshua, when the sun stood still (Jo lO: 13).
The reason that Habbakuk described God's liberating deeds of past times,
Andrew says, was to console his audience about the coming evil that would
be perpetrated by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. After rendering the
common contemporary Jewish exegesis of this passage,Andrew offersa third
alternative reading of the text, one that takes this passage to be prophetic but
not messianic; it had already been fulfilled before the time of Christ. This
canticle, Andrew argued, could be read as a prophecy about the coming de-
feat of the Babylonians by Cyrus and Darius. In an exegesis that, as far as I
can see, is unique to Andrew, and based on a reading of Herodotus' Histories,
Christ or Antichrist? 351
he interprets it as a description of the siege and capture of Babylon and the
end of the Babylonian captivity." Andrew seems to say that there is no need
to interpret these passages as referring to Christ in their literal and histori-
cal sense.
By choosing a strictly historical interpretation for passages like these,
Andrew not only defused their messianic importance, but he seems to have
wanted to deemphasize their Christological significance as well. This makes
some of his commentaries surprisingly free of the polemical anti-Judaic tone
that characterized so many of the other Christian commentaries on the Old
Testament, JerC?me's included. At times, Andrew seems to emphasize the
Augustinian notion of a common eschatological future for both Jews and
Christians. In Micah 2: Il, for instance, "I will assemble and gather together
all of thee;' Andrew comments: "So far, we have not seen all of Jacob gath-
ered together, but we expect it in the future, when Judah will be saved, and
Israel shall live with confidence, and the rod of Joseph and Judah will be
united, and out of two shall be one people, and they shall have one head,
namely Christ, whois from the line of David, or, according to the Jews,
David himself, ;ho will rule over them."32
But when these Jewish messianic interpretations display a more venge-
ful attitude towards Christians, Andrew's attitude is decidedly more am-
biguous than it íïrst appears. Although he presents Jewish exegesis as alter-
native explanations, Andrew does not want to give too much credence to
the Jewish eschatological reading of prophetic texts. Instead, he simply sets
these prophetic texts in their own historical context and explain them as re-
lating to events that happened during the prophets' own lifetime, or some
time between the prophets' lifetime and the coming of Christ. His interpre-
tation steers a "middle way" between Christology and messianism. Some-
times, Andrew did not have to look very far for this interpretation, since it
was already suggested to him by Jerome. His exegesis of Obadiah 17-18,
for instance, is remarkable mainly for what he left out, rather than what he
said. Andrew here cited the Glossa ordinaria, which in turn had used Hairno,
who had used Jerome. Thus for Andrew, this verse refers to the rebuilding
of the Temple, but not the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, as
the Jews say, but the one destroyed by the Chaldeans in 586 BCE. This re-
building took place in the time of the Persian Empire, under the leader-
ship ofZerubbabel, and thus refers to a past historical event, not to a future
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Frans van Liere
messianic event." Jerome's main point, however, that this prophecy was
fulfilled in the church, Andrew left out.
Another example of the "middle way" that Andrew steered between
Jewish messianism and Christological exegesis can be found in his inter-
pretation of JoeI2:28-32 (in non-Vulgate versions, this is chapter 3), Joel's
prophecy concerning the "pouring out of the Spirit of God on all Mankind"
and the "great and terrible day of the Lord." According to Jerome's interpre-
tation, which was probably inspired by the interpretation of this prophecy in
the New Testament itself (Acts 2: 17 - 22), these verses refer to events in the
New Testament: the pouring out of the Spirit happened at Pentecost, the
signs in heaven and on earth were the signs that accompanied the birth of
Christ, and the "Sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood" refers to
what happened at the moment of Jesus' crucifixion. That the chronological
order seems to be a bit jumbled up does not matter, for, as Jerome states else-
where (on Amos 2:9-11), in prophetic discourse, the order of history is not
always maintained" While Andrew faithfully excerpts Jerome here, he also
offers an alternative interpretation, derived from Jewish exegetes. He ob-
serves that the Jews say that all this will happen in the future, at the end of
times. To explain what will happen in those last days, Andrew summarizes
an exegesis we can find in the Midrash Tanhuma, which is cited by Rashi: all
will possessthe spirit of God, and there will be no distinction between Jews
and Gentiles. All people, young and old, will have the gift of prophecy. The
day of judgment will surely come with mighty and fearful signs, but all who
will call on the name of God will be saved." Still, Andrew seems reluctant to
give too much credibility to a messianic reading of this passage. InzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
the follow-
ing verse, "On Mount Zion there shall be salvation" (a verse that, inciden-
tally, occurs in the same words in Obadiah 17), Andrew observes that here
we have to find out whether this applies to the time of Christ or to the end of
times; we cannot apply one part of the prophecy to one period, and another
part to the other, because the prophet set everything within a single time
frame. Jerome took this passage to be a reference to the small number of the
Jews who converted to Christianity. The Jews, Andrew says, take this to refer
to the end of the Jewish Diaspora, after the fall of the Roman Empire. The
only way that all events fit within one time frame, however, Andrew says, is to
interpret the verse as referring to the remnant of the ten tribes that fled to
Jerusalem, after the destruction of Samaria in 722 BCE (2 Kgs 18:9).
Christ or Antichrist? 353
While Andrew avoids the identification of the Jewish Messiah with An-
tichrist most of the time, the idea was not altogether alien to him. Despite his
sympathetic stance towards Jewish exegesis, he probably did think that the
Jews were ultimately deluded in their messianic interpretations. An example
of this can be found in Hosea 13:13-15. The Vulgate reads: "I shall be your
death, O death:' The next verse says: "An east wind will come, a blast from
the Lord, rising over the desert:' Andrew offersno fewer than four contrasting
interpretations of this text" He first cites Jerome, who says that this refers to
Christ, who di~d to defeat death so we might have life. The wind is Christ,
says Jerome, with a reference to Habbakuk 3:3. Next Andrew says that ac-
cording to the Jews, this wind refers to "their Messiah" (helimenus suus),
who, he says, in our interpretation is the Antichrist, who will "overturn
death;' that is, the Roman Empire. While the interpretation of the "wind
from the desert" as the Messiah can be found in the Targum Jonathan, the
identification of this Messiah with Antichrist is Andrew's own addition , and zyxwv
thus he offersa strong rebuke of any hint at a messianic interpretation of this
passage. Andrew refers to the Jewish Messiah here as the helimenus, a Greek
word that is possibly derived from elaio ("to oil, to anoint"), or, less likely,
eleimenos ("one who has received mercy"). Apart from one stray reference in
Jerome's commentaryon Isaiah, the word seems quite unique to Andrew." It
seems to indicate-a reluctance to identify the expected Jewish Messiah with
the second coming of Christ. Andrew closes his exegesis with two much more
historical contextualizations. It is quite possible, he says, that this passage
refers to one of the two past events: the "death" brought by the Assyrian army
besieging the city of Jerusalem under Sennacherib, who were defeated by a
plague sent by the Lord (2 Kgs 19:35-37). Or perhaps it refers to an even
later period in history: the end of the Babylonian Empire at the hands of
Cyrus and Darius, who "caused the springs to fail and fountains to run dry"
(Hos 13:15), when they conquered the city of Babylon by diverting the course
of the Euphrates." In both cases,Andrew historicizes these passages; they are
prophecies that already have been fulfilled before the coming of Christ,
rather than future events. But, noting that Jews did read these as prophecies
about the future, he did not seem uncomfortable with the suggestion that
identified the coming Jewish Messiah with the Christian Antichrist.
Thus it was notso much the rejection of Jewish theology that set Andrew
apart from his contemporaries; that was to be expected. The important
354 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Frans van Liere
difference is that, although some of the Jewish exegetical traditions he cited
were derived from Jerome or the Glossa ordinaria, he knew others from
firsthand experience. This use of firsthand sources sets Andrew apart from
his medieval predecessors. For the modern scholar they provide an interest-
ing insight into the beliefs of twelfth-century Jewish exegetes and their re-
ception by Christian scholars. Andrew's rendering of the eschatological
readings of Joel and Hosea, cited above, clearly show how Andrew's interpre-
tations were not dependent on Jerome or the Glossa, but were derived from
Jewish interlocutors who explained these ideas to him. Sometimes it is hard
to ascertain the exact source for these exegetical traditions because we QO
not find them written down or printed in any Jewish sources that survive.
For example, twice in his commentaries, Andrew states that the Jews believe
that the coming Messiah would not be a descendant of David but the resur-
rected David himself.'? No surviving Jewish exegetical source corroborates
this tradition, and it is not certain whether Andrew here misheard or misin-
terpreted his source, or whether this is evidence for a Jewish tradition that
is not otherwise recorded. In any case, not everything that was Jewish had
undisputed authority to Andrew. He expresses clear skepticism about some
of the traditions he encountered. In his Ezechiel commentary, for instance,
Andrew responds to the Jewish tradition that at the end of times, after the
resurrection of the dead, the Temple would be rebuilt. The notion seems
absurd to him. Citing a popular saying of the day, found in Horace, Andrew
exclaims, "May God prevent the pious minds of the saints from believing
this! Let the Jew Apella believe this?"
Andrew's treatment of the prophetic texts is decidedly ambivalent.
He combines appreciation for their exegetical tradition with skepticism to-
wards their theology. The anti-Jewish tendencies of his Carolingian sources
has been well established by scholars, and it does not seem surprising that
Haimo would identify the Jewish Antichrist with the Messiah. The anti-
Judaism of the Glossa ordinaria has also been well established." But An-
drew, by contrast, has been portrayed as much more open to Jewish exegesis,
to the point of favoring Jewish interpretations of the Old Testament over
more overtly Christian ones. To be sure, he often presents Jewish exegesis as
a viable alternative to the common Christian Christological explanations of
prophecies in the Old Testament. But his exploration of Jewish exegesis also
brought him into contact with the "vengeful messianism" of common Jew-
Christ or Antichrist? 355
ish interpretations. Jews read these prophetic texts in an eschatological way,
and the texts provided them with hope for the defeat of their current oppres-
sors, and the hope of a reversal of the roles between Christians and Jews.
This message was clearly disturbing for contemporary Christians. This Jew-
ish Messiah, who would overturn the Roman Empire (identified by contem-
poraries with the Holy Roman Empire or Christendom in a more general
sense) and establish a kingdom in Jerusalem, looked to them more like the
Antichrist. Althoug~ twelfth-century exegetes such as Hugh and Andrew of
St. Victor were pioneering in their exploration of the Jewish exegetical tradi-
tion, we should be careful not to make them more modern than they really
were. They were more aware of Judaism as a living religion than their Chris-
tian predecessors, but it did not make them necessarily more tolerant. Where
they encountered theological notions that contradicted their own, they felt
compelled to refute them, using exegetical and theological concepts handed
to them by the Christian tradition. It is ironic, and perhaps sad, that the dis-
covery of a common interest in a shared scripture and theology should re-
sult in polemic rather than dialogue and reconciliation. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcb
NOTES
...
1. This contribution is picking up a theme discussed by Michael Signer in
"Consolation and Confrontation:' I dedicate this article to the memory of Michael,
in deep appreciation for his path-breaking work. I also wish to thank my wife, Kate
Elliot van Liere, for her critical reading and constructive comments. An earlier ver-
sion of this paper was presented at the Medieval Literatures Seminar, at the Centre
for Medieval Studies of York University. I wish to thank the Centre for granting me
the opportunityto pursue my research there in the spring of 2009.
2. Zinn, "History and Interpretation"; Dahan, "Juifs et Chrétiens en occi-
dent médiéval"; Signer, "Polemic and Exegesis:'
3. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see, for instance, Cohen, Liv-
ing Letters of the Law.
4. See Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem, and Yuval, Two Nations in Your
Womb, 38-49.
5. Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb, 92-123.
6. Compare Andrew of St. Victor and the Glossa ordinaria on Micah 2: 11-13:
Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio super Duodecim Prophetas, p. 192, lines 308-13,
vs. Biblia latina cum Glossa ordinaria, 3:406a.
7. Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores.
356 Frans van Liere zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Christ or Antichrist? 357

s. zyxwvutOn
srqponmlthe
kjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJI
development HGFEDCBA of this legend, see Bousset, The Antichrist Legend; 33. The Targum of the Minor Prophets, 102.
McGinn, The Antichrist.
34. Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio super Duodecim Probhetas, pp. 9S-99,
9. Bernheim, Mittelalterliche Zeitanschauungen. Adso's treatise is edited in lines 373-96; Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, p. 237, lines 277-79.
Adso Dervensis, De ortu et tempore Antichristi, 20- 30. On its reception in biblical Compare Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio super Duodecim Proohetas, p. 119, lines
commentaries, see Hughes, Constructing Antichrist, 115 -2 3S. 251- 52: "ubi de laude Dei agitur non est curandus ardo histone."
lO. McGinn, The Antichrist, 114-72. 35. Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio super Duodecim Prophetas, pp. 99-100,
Il. Ludus de Antichristo, 2:36-45; The Play of Antichrist, 57-61. lines 397-413; Tanhuma Bar Abba, Midrash Tanhuma, 10.4.
12. Gow, The Red Jews, 94-95; compare Peter Comestor, Historia Scholas-
36. Andrew of St. Victor, Exoositio super Duodecim Prophetas, pp. 7S-S3,
tica, PL 19S: 1446A. lines 2196-2339. The four alternative interpretations are introduced, respectively,
13. Hughes, Constructing Antichrist, 144-67. For Haimo's position on the with "po test et sic intelligi quod dicitur," "vel sic;' and "potest et hoc legi de Iibera-
Jews, see Heil, Kompilation oder Konstruktion? and Savigni, "II commentario a Isaia tione populi que facta est Babilone subuersa "
di Aimone d'Auxerre e le sue fente," More recent studies on Hairno have appeared
37. Ibid., p. SI, lines 2275-76. See also Jerome's commentary on Isaiah, PL
in Shirnahara, ed., Études d'exégèse carolingienne: Études autour d'Haymon d'Aux- 24: 314A: "Antichristus, ut dicitur helimenus [or: helimmenus l suus." We find the
erre. Unfortunately, Haimo's commentary on the minor prophets is not the subject term also in Andrew's Ezechiel commentary: Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio in
of any of the studies mentioned here. Ezechielem, p. 140, line 112.
14. Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, p. 369, lines 607-S. 3S. Andrew of St. Victor, Expoeitio super Duodecim Proohetas, pp. S2-S3,
15. Haimo of Auxerre, Enarratio, PL I17:126CD. lines 2334-36. Again, this interpretation seems to be based on the historical ac-
16. Ibid. count of Herodotus, Historiae, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
1.1 91.
17. Jerome, Commentarii in Probhetas Minores, p. 700, lines 253-61; Hairno, 39. Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio in Ezechielem, p. 152, lines 113-15 and
Enarratio, PL lI7:207D. p. 140, lines 113 -14; Andrew of St. Victor, Expoeitio super Duodecim Prophetas,
IS. Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, p. S22, lines 615-17; Haimo, p. 192, lines 312-13.
Enarratio, PL 117 :24 7C. 40. "Auertet deus hec credere a sanctorum mente pia. Credat hoc iudeus
19. Smith, The Glossa ordinaria. Apella"; Andrew of St. Victor, Expoeitio in Ezechielem, p. 17S, lines 114-15. Citing
20. Smalley, "Cilbertus Universalis," Horace, Satyrae 1.~.97.
21. Glossa ordinaria in Ob l: IS.2 marginalis: Biblia latina cum glossa ordi- 41. Signer, "The Glossa Ordinaria:'
naria, 3:396b.
22. Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, p. 32, lines 556-57.
23. Glossa ordinaria in Has 2:21 marginalis: Biblia latina cum glossa ordi-
naria, 3:357b. Haimo, Enarratio, PL lI7:26CD.
24. See also, for instance, Rupert of Deutz, Commentariorum in Duodecim
Prophetas, PL 16S:15SD, and Peter Cornestor, Historia Scholastica.
25. Smalley, "Andrew ofSt. Victor;' and The Study of the Bible; Berndt, André
de Saint-Victor.
26. Van Liere, "Andrew of St. Victor, Jerome, and the Jews!'
27. Andrew ofSt. Victor, Expositio in Ezechielem, pp. xxi-xxvii.
2S. Van Zwieten, "Jewish Exegesis"; Van Liere, "Andrew of Saint Victor and
His Franciscan Critics:'
29. Jerome, Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, pp. 649- 52, lines 1174-1247.
30. Rashi, The Complete Jewish Bible with Rashi Commentary.
31. Andrew of St. Victor, Expoeitio super Duodecim Prophetas, pp. 251-54,
lines 733-S34; Herodotus, Historiae, 1.191.
32. Andrew of St. Victor, Expositio super Duodecim Prophetas, p. 192, lines
30S-13.