
Living Letters of the Law
Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity
Jeremy Cohen(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 11. November 1999
Book
Paperback/Softback
461 pages
978-0-520-21870-3 (ISBN)
Description
In "Living Letters of the Law", Jeremy Cohen investigates the images of Jews and Judaism in the works of medieval Christian theologians from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas. He reveals how - and why - medieval Christianity fashioned a Jew on the basis of its reading of the Bible, and how this hermeneutically crafted Jew assumed distinctive character and power in Christian thought and culture. Augustine's doctrine of Jewish witness, which constructed the Jews so as to mandate their survival in a properly ordered Christian world, is the starting point for this illuminating study. Cohen demonstrates how adaptations of this doctrine reflected change in the self-consciousness of early medieval civilization. After exploring the effect of twelfth-century Europe's encounter with Islam on the value of Augustine's Jewish witnesses, he concludes with a new assessment of the reception of Augustine's ideas among thirteenth-century popes and friars.
Consistently linking the medieval idea of the Jew with broader issues of textual criticism, anthropology, and the philosophy of history, this book demonstrates the complex significance of Christianity's 'hermeneutical Jew' not only in the history of antisemitism but also in the broad scope of Western intellectual history.
Consistently linking the medieval idea of the Jew with broader issues of textual criticism, anthropology, and the philosophy of history, this book demonstrates the complex significance of Christianity's 'hermeneutical Jew' not only in the history of antisemitism but also in the broad scope of Western intellectual history.
More details
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
1 table.
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-21870-3 (9780520218703)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/1999
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€38.49
Available for download
Person
Jeremy Cohen, Professor of Medieval Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, has written two prize-winning books, The Friars and the Jews (1982), and "Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It" (1989). He is the editor ofEssential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict (1991), and From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (1996).
Content
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
PART ONE: AUGUSTINIAN FOUNDATIONS
I. The Doctrine of Jewish Witness
PART TWO: THE AUGUSTINIAN LEGACY IN THE
EARLY MIDDLE AGES: ADAPTATION, REINTERPRETATION, RESISTANCE
2. Gregory the Great: Between Sicut Iudaeis and Adversus Iudaeos
3? Isidore of Seville: Anti-Judaism and the Hermeneutics of Integration
4? Agobard of Lyons: Battling the Enemies of Christian Unity
PART THREE: RECONCEPTUALIZING JEWISH DISBELIEF IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
5? Reason in Defense of the Faith: From Anselm of Canterbury to Peter Alfonsi
6. Against the Backdrop of Holy War: Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable
7? Renaissance Men and Their Dreams
PART FOUR: THE FRIARS RECONSIDERED
8. Judaism as Heresy: Thirteenth-Century Churchmen and the Talmud
9? Ambiguities of Thomistic Synthesis
Afterword
References
Index
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
PART ONE: AUGUSTINIAN FOUNDATIONS
I. The Doctrine of Jewish Witness
PART TWO: THE AUGUSTINIAN LEGACY IN THE
EARLY MIDDLE AGES: ADAPTATION, REINTERPRETATION, RESISTANCE
2. Gregory the Great: Between Sicut Iudaeis and Adversus Iudaeos
3? Isidore of Seville: Anti-Judaism and the Hermeneutics of Integration
4? Agobard of Lyons: Battling the Enemies of Christian Unity
PART THREE: RECONCEPTUALIZING JEWISH DISBELIEF IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
5? Reason in Defense of the Faith: From Anselm of Canterbury to Peter Alfonsi
6. Against the Backdrop of Holy War: Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable
7? Renaissance Men and Their Dreams
PART FOUR: THE FRIARS RECONSIDERED
8. Judaism as Heresy: Thirteenth-Century Churchmen and the Talmud
9? Ambiguities of Thomistic Synthesis
Afterword
References
Index