Because there are 22 special cards in the tarot deck, and also 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, it is often thought that there is some relationship between the tarot and Judaism, especially the esoteric side of Judaism known as Kabbalah.
Against this, it is often protested that the tarot deck has no sign of Jewish imagery on its cards. Such imagery would not be in pictures in any event, because of the Jewish ban on "graven images". Moreover, the tarot cards are all of subjects familiar to Christians in the 15th century, and the invention of the deck surely precedes any Christian knowledge of or interest in the Kabbalah, which didn't happen before Pico della Mirandola's "Cabalistic conclusions" in 1486.
However these are all subjects that demand a closer look, in the context of Jewish-Christian relations generally and of intellectual exchanges in particular.
But I want to make it clear from the outset that I am not proposing that Kabbalah or the Jewish alphabet was part of the tarot from the beginning. For one thing, nothing is known about tarot's beginning. There is no known document of the time describing the invention and the rationale for its subjects. And even of the whole or partial decks that have survived it is not known how many special cards they had; there are numbers on these cards, and no lists of subjects from the early period. There is a good chance it was not 22 early on. If so, Jewish considerations might well have played a role in fixing the number at 22 in the late 15th century. And even if such considerations did not play any role in the symbolism of the tarot early on, it may well have later, after 1486.
First, it seems to me, we need to know as much as possible the extent of Jewish-Christian interactions--before 1500, I am going to say, so as to allow time both before and after 1486. I divide the subject into two main parts: (1) in Italy generally before the 15th century; and (2) specufuc personalities in the 15th century. I divide (1) into five sections: (a) general overview; (b) Jewish occupations except with silk; (c) silk; (d) theological interchanges; and (e) interchanges pertaining to magic and divination.
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(a) Jews in Italy before the 15th century: general overview
During the time of the pagan Roman Empire, Jews were present in large numbers in Italy, at least 30,000 in Rome alone. Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... s_in_Italy:
When Christianity became the religion first of the emperor and then of the Empire (380), severe persecution began. This ended when the Ostrogoths established their rule:In addition to Rome, there were a significant number of Jewish communities in southern Italy during this period. For example, the regions of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia had well established Jewish populations.[3]
Once Italy was secure against Byzantium, Jews were persecuted again, Wikipedia says. But then came the Lombards:At the time of the foundation of the Ostrogothic rule under Theodoric (493 – 526), there were flourishing communities of Jews in Rome, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Messina, Agrigentum, and in Sardinia. The Popes of the period were not seriously opposed to the Jews; and this accounts for the ardor with which the latter took up arms for the Ostrogoths as against the forces of Justinian—particularly at Naples, where the remarkable defense of the city was maintained almost entirely by Jews.
This ushered in a generally favorable period, up to the 13th century, per Wikipedia:it was not long until the greater part of Italy came into the possession of the Lombards (568-774), under whom they lived in peace. Indeed, the Lombards passed no exceptional laws relative to the Jews. Even after the Lombards embraced Catholicism the condition of the Jews was always favorable, because the popes of that time not only did not persecute them, but guaranteed them more or less protection.
The Jewish Encyclopedia (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8343-italy, from which Wikipedia seems to be getting much information, mentions an expulsion of the Jews from Bologna in 1172; "but they were soon allowed to return."A nephew of Rabbi Nathan ben Jehliel acted as administrator of the property of Pope Alexander III, who showed his amicable feelings toward the Jews at the Lateran Council of 1179, where he defeated the designs of hostile prelates who advocated anti-Jewish laws. Under Norman rule the Jews of southern Italy and of Sicily enjoyed even greater freedom; they were considered the equals of the Christians, and were permitted to follow any career; they even had jurisdiction over their own affairs. Indeed, in no country were the canonical laws against the Jews so frequently disregarded as in Italy.
However Innocent III (1198-1216) threatened with excommunication those who maintained Jews in positions of authority and insisted that all Jews be dismissed from public positions. He also required Jews to wear a special yellow cloth on their clothing. In 1235 Pope Gregory IX published the first bull accusing Jews of ritual murder, followed by many other popes to come. Wikipedia continues, about the 15th century:
Wikipedia's information again seems to come mostly from the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906, with almost identical wording and list of cities. However it would seem to be accurate.The Jews suffered much from the relentless persecutions of the Avignon-based antipope Benedict XIII. They hailed his successor, Martin V, with delight. The synod convoked by the Jews at Bologna, and continued at Forlì, sent a deputation with costly gifts to the new pope, praying him to abolish the oppressive laws promulgated by Benedict and to grant the Jews those privileges which had been accorded them under previous popes. The deputation succeeded in its mission, but the period of grace was short; for Martin's successor, Eugenius IV, at first favorably disposed toward the Jews, ultimately reenacted all the restrictive laws issued by Benedict. In Italy, however, his bull was generally disregarded. The great centers, such as Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Pisa, realized that their commercial interests were of more importance than the affairs of the spiritual leaders of the Church; and accordingly the Jews, many of whom were bankers and leading merchants, found their condition better than ever before.
(b) Jewish Occupations in the Middle Ages, except silk
It is difficult to get full information about Jewish means of livelihood durimg the Middle Ages. In the 15th century, of course, many leading bankers were Jewish, having been accorded permission by papal authorities and local governments to lend money at interest. So presumably they had experience in this trade earlier, no doubt at least during the Crusades, for the transmission of funds from Western Europe to points east. Also, we know, Jews distinguished themselves in medicine. There were also Jewish poets and philosophers in medieval Italy. For the 10th-14th centuries, the Jewish Encyclopedia mentions "Judah Kohen of Toledo, later of Tuscany" brought first to Sicily by Frederick II; and in Rome "Hillel of Verona", physician; Immanuel ben Solomon, said to be a friend of Dante's; and others. The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia (https://books.google.com/books?id=dwICJoLCfhQC&pg=PT147&lpg=PT147&dq=Jewish+Encyclopedia+Italy&source=bl&ots=H2tqQMwDWG&sig=pSetYMkf4_3R7Mo_ZwgQw6-0Ajs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rfJ0VLS9F8-1oQTuhILgDA&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=Jewish%20Encyclopedia%20Italy&f=false) says of Italian Jews that "Between 1230 and 1550, poets, scholars, and philosophers writing in Hebrew, Italian, and Latin created a 'golden age' of Jewish learning paralleled only in Muslim Spain." There was even an "Antipope" of Jewish descent, Anacletus II (d. 1138), whose great-great grandfather had b een a converted Jew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipope_Anacletus_II).
But what about less distinguished Jews? Mark Wischnitzer, in A History of Jewish Crafts and Guilds, 1965, p. 80, says (p. 50):
And in general (pp. 51-52):The Jewish community of ancient Rome, liberally estimated as some 40,000, included tent makers, tailors, and butchers. Reference is made in the Talmud to a Jewish tailor in Rome who worked for a non-Jewish master.
Some information is contained in Antipope Benedict XIII's harsh prescriptions of 1415 (again Wikipedia; I omit the footnote):Weaving, dyeing and glassmaking were the chief trades plied by Jews in Syria, Asia Minor, and the western countries of the Diaspora.
It would appear that Jews had continued to be artisans, as they had been in Italy since pagan times, serving not only Jewish needs but that of the general population. Wischnitzer says (p. 80):Synagogues were closed, Jewish goldsmiths were forbidden to produce religious objects such as chalices and crucifixes,[6] and Jewish book binders were prohibited from binding books in which the names of Jesus or Mary occurred.
A list of about 400 scribes has been compiled for Italy alone in the period up to 1500.
If there are scribes, including illuminators, there would likely be bookbinders. Then after the invention of printing, 15th century, Jews in Italy went into that trade. Some illuminators apparently continued as card painters. Wischnitzer writes, in a discussion of Germany (p. 90):
Gold- and silver- smiths are mentioned for Trevoux, which is now a suburb of Lyons. Wischnitzer relates (p. 80):Jews apparently were also engaged in painting playing cards. The town book of the city of Landau, in the Palatinate, for 1520 deals with the complaint of the card-painter Meyer Hayyim whose trade suffered because of the importation of playing cards from other cities. The Council decided to stop the sale of imported cards.
In addition, he says:After their expulsion from the latter city [Lyons], in the later fourteenth century, Jews settled in Trevoux, carrying with them a craft which they continued to practice to the first half of the nineteenth century.
Given this expertise in sword-making, I think it is legitimate to infer that other Jewish metalworkers were in Italy earlier as well. Since gold and silver were etched by the smiths, this is a trade that transfers well to woodcuts and engraving, just as illuminating transfers into card-painting.Sword making was one of the skills plied by Jewish workers. The armorer, Salmone da Sesso, named after his conversion to Christianity, Ercole de' Fideli (c. 1465-1519), worked for the court of Ferrara. Most famous was the so-called "Queen of Swords" which he made for Cesare Borgia....A silversmith, Isaac of Bologna, was employed by the royal court in Naples in 1474. Mantua had a street of Jewish goldsmiths. Members of the jeweler's family of Formiggini worked for two centuries for the dukes of the house of d'Este.
Some information comes in a discussion of a bull by Eugenius IV, which is 15th century but tells us about conditions earlier (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12816-rome):
The most frequently mentioned trade for Jews, of course, is moneylending. Since moneylending by Jews required official permission, such licenses were part of the public record. That trade includes other categories besides rich bankers. Books frequently speaks of pawn shops; these would seem to have been more widespread than banks, especially rich ones, but I don't know how the distinction was drawn, if it was.In the bull of 1442, which comprises forty-two articles, he forbids the Jews to study civil law or to engage in handicrafts; he also orders the abolition of the Jewish courts. This bull was enforced with such rigor that several Jews left the Roman territory and settled in Mantua, by permission of Francisco Gonzaga. However, the leaders of several Roman congregations met in Tivoli and in Ravenna, and by the speedy collection of enormous sums of money they succeeded in having this bull withdrawn, though the clause which taxed the Roman community to the amount of 1,000 scudi remained in force.
Annie Sacerdoti, in Guide to Jewish Italy, 2003, gives some information on Jewish occupations, town by town. She does not say, but probably the information comes from commune archives. I first quote her material on Piedmont (pp. 20, 22, 36):
By "France", of course, the most immediately close to Piedmont were Provence and Languedoc. We shall explore in the next section the possibility of silkworms in both places during the Middle Ages.Asti: There was a permanent group of Jews there from the beginning of the 14th century, due to expulsions from France, etc. They were required to practice money-lending in order to stay in the town.
...
Biella: According to documents of 1377, at a place called Biella Piazzo, a certain Giocomino Giudeo practiced the profession of innkeeper. ..the profession of innkeeper was not commonly practiced by Jews."
...
Moncalvo: In 1394 many of the Jews expelled from France crossed the Alps and settled in Piedmont, where many small Jewish centers sprang p, even in rural areas. Moncalvo is one such rural locality....At Moncalvo the Jews ran one of the eighteen loan banks scattered throughout the Monferrato area in the 16th century. But they also engaged in crafts and were traveling merchants.
Then there are the maritime regions, starting with Ancona (p. 154).
There is additional material in the 1999 book, p. 160:A bridge between Europe and the East, the port of Ancona was always a hub of economic activities for the local Jewish community. Over the centuries these activities attracted thousands of merchants, especially Levantines and Marranos, who, however, never fully integrated with the Italian Jews.
Also, p. 115:Jews arrived in Ancona around the year 1000. In 1300, Ancona was second only to Rome in Jewish population.
Jews appear to have been less active on the western coast, at least before the deal with Lucca. The 1999 book observes of Genoa:The Jews of Rimini, Forli, Faenz, Ravenna, Russi, Cesena, and Bertinoro were involved in the maritime trade as early as the 13th century. There was a house identified as the "House of Ovadia," in Bertinoro, which was an important Rabbinical Academy.
In Pisa, Tuscan Jewish Itineraries, p.117, says:When Benjamin of Tudela, the Jewish Marco Polo, visited the city in 1159, he noted in his diary that there were only two Jewish families, of Moroccan descent, who ran a dyeworks.
Apparently Jews too poor to afford a headstone were simply buried next to the wall and a short commemoration scratched in its stones. It is regrettable that there is no information about the content of the contracts. The account continues (p. 118):Pisa may be the first Tuscan city in which the Jews settled. The first documentary evidence of a presence in the city is a contract of 850 registering the renting of a house by a Jew. Benjamin of Tudela provides further confirmation of the community when, in the account of his journey from spain to Jerusalem, he mentions meeting around twenty Jews in the port. From this period on there is considerable archive evidence of the presence of Jews - usually contracts of one kind or another. We also know that in the middle of the 13th century there was a street called Chiasso dei Giuei (Jews' Lane), in which there was probably a synagogue. A funeral inscription on the town walls dates from the same period (1264).
There are also many references to substantial settlements of Jews in all of southern Italy and Sardinia prior to 1492. Such settlements, given Jewish sanitation and dietary laws, if nothing else, would of necessity have included a variety of trades. A 1999 book by Annie Sacerdoti and Luca Fiorentine, Italy Jewish Travel Guide, translated by Richard F. De Lossa, ends its account of Sicily as follows:The Jewish population subsequently increased with the arrival of a number of Spanish and Provencal Jews fleeing reprisals after unjustly being accused of spreading the 1348 Plague - they had been expressly invited by the Commune of Pisa to settle in the city.
These expulsions were a reflection of the establishment of Spanish direct rule in these places.The Jews were expelled from Sicily in 1492, where they had made up 6% of the population. Fleeing to Calabria, they were expelled there in 1525, then from all of the Kingdom of Naples in 1542, whereupon they fled north and east.
(c) Jews, Lucca, and silk
Another trade with some recorded history in Italy, including Jewish involvement, is that which I mentioned at the beginning: silk production.
In Europe silkworms were raised first in the Byzantine Empire, starting in the 6th century; they jealously guarded all aspects of the industry. But Arab conquests east and west ended that monopoly. Starting in 827 c.e. all or part of Sicily was in the Baghdad Caliphate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicily#Ara ... .931091.29), which had already gotten silkworms as part of the spoils in conquering Persia. Wischnitzer says, p. 59:
Footnote 20 is to the Babylonian Talmud. He later adds (p. 78):Jewish silk production was an important industry in the Baghdad caliphate and in Egypt, Sicily, and Spain in the early Middle Ages. Jews cultivated mulberry trees for silk production, bred silk worms, and spun silk yarn. Here again a religious question arose: was it permissible to feed the worms on Saturdays and during festivals? The gaon Hai consulted the opinions of his predecessors and decided that it was permissible to feed the worms on festivals, but not on the Sabbath. (20). The gaon Matatia permitted feeding them on the Sabbath also.
A current website, https://texeresilk.com/article/history_of_silk, says:The Saracens transplanted sericulture to Sicily, but it took firmer hold under the later Normal rule. The Italian silk manufacture originated in Sicily and in the southern part of the Italian Peninsula, whence it spread to central and northern Italy, France, and other parts of Europe. (9)
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9. Encyclopedia Britannica, XX. 5.00, "Silk and Sericulture". A. J. Doren Italienische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Jena, 1934, I. 491; Hitti, History of the Arabs, p. 607; Thompson, Later Middle Ages, p. 251.
Then came the Normans, who took the island from the Arabs by 1091. In 1147 King Roger II of Sicily made a raid on Byzantium and took back with him a large number of Jewish silk workers, perhaps as many as 2000 from Thebes alone. Wischnitzer says (p. 70):In the seventh century, the Arabs conquered Persia, capturing their magnificent silks in the process. Sericulture and silk weaving thus spread through Africa, Sicily, and Spain as the Arabs swept through these lands. Andalusia was Europe's main silk-producing center in the tenth century.
Sericulture seems to have spread in particular to the city of Lucca. Wischnitzer writes of Jewish weavers and dyers in Sicily (p. 80):This event is considered to mark the emancipation of western Europe from the Byzantine monopoly of sericulture, which now spread from Sicily to the Italian mainland and to Provence (6).
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6. M. Camera, Memorie storico Diplomatische del' Antica Citta e Ducato di Amalfi, Salerno, 1876, I. 347; B. Strauss Die Juden im Koenigreich Sizilien unier des Mormannen und Staufen (cited as Straus, [i]Sicilien[/]), Heidelberg, 1910, p. 66.
At http://belovedlinens.net/fabrics/renais ... xtiles.php, we read:Some probably went to Lucca, where silk production flourished in the late Middle Ages.
This essay cites Opera textilia variorum temporum, Stockholm, 1988. Donald and Monique King, adding that Donald King (d. 1998) was former Keeper of Textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum.During the 8th-10th c. Lucca was known for its merchants and luxury artisans. It was a center of Jewish life, led by the Kalonymos family that had kept alive commercial links with the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East. Lucca, having no direct access to the sea, forged an agreement with Genoa in the middle of the 12th c. which allowed its merchants to transport goods through the Genovese territory. In exchange, Genovese ships were to bring back to Italy the raw silk purchased by Lucca's merchants from the Levant. ... Lucca made notable improvements in the technology of silk-throwing devices and promoted the sericulture in the immediate countryside.
There is much about the Kalonymos or Kolonymus family on the Internet. The Jewish Encyclopedia says in its article on Lucca (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10174-lucca):
"Mayence" is the pre-20th century English word for "Mainz". There is also, in the Jewish Encyclopedia's article on France (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9990-limoges), mention of a legend that the one to encourage the family's settlement in Mayence was Charlemagne:Its Jewish community is known in literature especially through the Kalonymus family of Lucca, whose ancestor saved the life of the German emperor Otto II. after the battle of Cotrone in Calabria (982), and seems thereupon to have settled at Mayence, where the family had extensive privileges.
Another source, http://www.cyclopaedia.de/wiki/Kalonymus, includes Charles the Bald as a third possibility for the ruler who induced the family to settle in Mainz. Prominent members of the family appear on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalonymos_family and links given there, as being in Italy--Lucca or Rome--between 780 and 976, thereafter Germany, Arles, and Narbonne. The famous Kabbalist Eleazar of Worms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleazar_of_Worms) was part of the Mainz branch. Only in 1465 do I find mention of a Kolonymus in Italy, an "Italian Jewish astrologer of the fifteenth century" dedicating his work to Ferdinand I of Naples" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kalonymus_ben_Jacob).It is also stated that he wished to transplant the family of Kalonymus from Lucca to Mayence ("'Emeḳ ha-Bakah," p. 13).
About pre-15th century Lucca, the book Tuscan Jewish Itineraries, edited by Dora Liscia Bemporad and Annamarcella Tedeschi Falco, 1997, on p. 102 quotes Benjamin de Tudela in his 12th century "Book of Travels" :
They add that:...at Lucca there are forty Jews. It is a large city and the Jews are led by Rabbi David, Rabbi Samuel and Rabbi Jaacob.
They say that after Benjamin's visit the numbers dwindled, in contrast to those in Pisa. There is no mention of what trades Jews practiced in Lucca until 1431, when Jews from Rome were given the monopoly on moneylending.Due to its economic importance, Lucca already had a rabbinical school by the 9th century (transferred from Apulia). The town of Oria in Apulia was also the origin was also the origin of the Calonimos family (the future Calo family), who, in 1145, would offer hospitality to the poet Abraham ibn Ezra.
It may be that Jews, such as the Kolanymos family, or other Italians, shifted their activities in silk production to Provence and Languedoc, and/or moved to Pisa. I cannot find any recent documentation on when silkworms came to France. However, an 1832 book on silk manufacture (http://books.google.com/books?id=dvhAAQ ... ce&f=false) says that in northern France, silkworms were introduced by Henry IV (reigned 1588-1610), but had been "previously cultivated in the Lyonaisse, Dauphiné, Provence, and Languedoc" (p. 34). As to where those came from, the author says, some accounts say mulberry trees were brought into France at the time of Charles VIII's invasion of Italy; "other authorities as confidently say that Sicily was the country whence the mulberry was first transplanted into France" (p. 35). (I would think that at least by the time of the French occupation of Lombardy, 1499-1525, the thought would have occurred to them.) He does know about Muslim introduction of silkworms into Spain, but attributes to King Roger their introduction into Sicily (p. 25). As for the rest of Italy, he does not know; he suspects the Venetians, after they took over the centers of silk production in Greece in 1206, or the Genoese, after they had got control of the Greek island of Galata; but he asserts as "certain" that in Modena of 1306 the silk was judged the finest in Lombardy (p. 28). Florence, however, had the highest quantity, in 1300 employing thousands.
About Italy: the book gives no references. Another problem is how enough raw silk would have gotten to Modena and Florence; perhaps those Genoese were very good at transporting raw silk from the Levant. Venice, which did control 3/8ths of the territory seized after the sack of Constantinople, would have tried to guard its silkworms from other Italians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Empire). But the other 5/8ths was the "Latin Empire", controlled by various Crusader factions. Galata is only nominally an island. It is separated from the mainland by a small inlet but was essentially a neighborhood of Constantinople, constituting its Jewish part (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata). The width of the inlet can be seen in a modern picture at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata_Bridge. According to Wikipedia the neighborhood was destroyed in 1203 in the early stages of the Sack of Constantinople. Jews, not treated well by the Greeks, conceivably might have been a valuable commodity to the Crusaders for their knowledge of silk production. The Crusaders' main focus then seems to have been recouping their considerable investments, which had drained their resources far beyond expectations. Before then, a "new" Genoese settlement had been destroyed in 1171, Wikipedia says. I would think the acquisition of silkworms at that time would be unlikely. Galata was retaken by the Byzantines in 1261, who granted it by treaty to the Genoese in 1267. By then, however, there would have been other sources for silkworms and knowledge of the industry.
About France: another website (http://www.maison-mimosa.com/flayosc_village.html), about a small village near the coast of Provence, recounts a legend about silkworm cultivation there before the advent of the plague (i.e. 14th century); they burned the mulberry trees (conveniently for the legend) as a defense against it, destroying the silk industry, apparently forever. There is today a "Rue des Fainéants", so named according to one legend because it meant "nitwits"', while "others think that they were persons collecting the leaves of the mulberry tree in order to feed the silk worms." There is no mention of Jews, but also no reason why there should be.
For Jewish participation in Italian silk production and merchandising before the 16th century other than Lucca, Wischnitzer mentions only Padua, p. 148,
For the 16th century, he cites Jewish involvement in the trade in Bologna and Rome. Also, an undated reference is in the 1999 book, p. 56. It says of Mondovi, Piedmont:Moses Mantica, fifteenth century, established the first workshop for silk production in that city.
Given the mention of 1724, this record of silkworms is likely rather late.The Jews in the upper part of the city practiced moneylending. The Jews living in the countryside raised silkworms and produced silk. In 1724 a ghetto was created at Mondovi Piazza, in the upper part of the town, and the Jews were forced to quit the countryside, and take up residence in the Ghetto.
One place where the record suggests that Jews did not engage in the silk trade is Florence. Wischnitzer says, in the context of the 16th-17th centuries:
Tuscan Jewish Itineraries finds the first mention of Jews living in Florence (as opposed to passing through) in 1427, licensing three pawn shops, "a move which marked the beginning of the Jewish community in that city" (p. 143). So I would guess there was no involvement in silk there by Jews in the 15th century.Attempts by Florentine Jews to enter the production and sale of fabrics met with stubborn resistance from the Christian drapers and had to be given up.
Now I will turn to interactions on a theological level between Christians and Jews. This divides into two parts: theology/theurgy and magic/divination
(d) Theological/philosophical interactions between Jews and Christians, pre-15th century
Besides commerce and money-lending, there is the matter of religious, philosophical and scholarly interactions between Jews and Christians in Italy.
There were numerous non-religious scholarly interactions from Jews to Christians, focused mainly on the recovery, translation, and interpretation of Arab and Greek texts, but also including particular Jewish innovations, such as their calendar reform. I am going to focus on the religious/theurgic and related philosophy, some of it involving the Kalonymos family.
I begin with Moshe Idel in Kabbalah in Italy 1280-1510: A Survey, 2011. Below, I highlight the mentions of Rome and the "Qalonymos family", p. 5 at http://archive.org/stream/MosheIdelKabb ... y_djvu.txt. "Heikhalot literature" concerns itself with "mystical ascent into heavenly palaces", according Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikhalot).
Idel adds that "We have firmer evidence from the late eleventh or early twelfth century". He gives two sources, or rather, combination of sources. The argument is rather dense and does not involve the Qalonymus family, but I present its main threads for the sake of completeness.There are several solid indications that Heikhalot literature was known in Rome, or in Italy in general, relatively early. Rav Hai Gaon, a tenth-century master active in Sura in Babylonia, was asked by some persons in Kairuan, Egypt, about the veracity of some books in which divine names were found and which were used for magical purposes. They claimed that some reliable "sages from the land of Israel and from the land of Edom" had seen miracles accomplished by use of the books. 8 In his reply, Hai Gaon, who was skeptical about popular understanding of the operations of the divine names, subtly disparaged the authority of those witnesses, writing that formulas found among "the persons from Rome and from the land of Israel" were also found in his milieu. 9 He thus reduced the "sages" described in the question to just "persons." Unfortunately, we lack any information about the identity of those Italian scholars who relied on magic. The only report that may lend support to Hai Gaon's reference comes from a description of Rabbi Todros of Rome, a member of the Qalonymos family, hugely influential among the Hasidei Ashkenaz, who "pronounced the [divine] name over the lion and bounded it and compelled it." 10 This tiny scrap of information, whether based in historical fact or in legend, at least provides an indication that Jewish notables in Rome possessed esoteric knowledge, and that magic was part and parcel of it.
First Idel examines "R. Nathan ben Yehi'el of Rome, a major figure in the Jewish life in the city" (p. 5). Nathan (in Rome) cites Hai Gon (in Babylon) for a psychological reading of the Heikhalot literature. Idel concludes (pp. 6-7)
Another source is the Scroll of 'Ahima'atz, "a famous family chronicle composed in 1054 but surveying much earlier periods" (p. 7). It cites with veneration a document called the Ma'aseh Merkavah. There is a treatise by that name in the Heikhelot literature, but it "scarcely invites such veneration". Instead, the reference is more likely to another work, the Heikhalot Rabbati. Idel argues:Thus we learn that seminal texts of Heikhalot literature were indeed present and quoted in Rome, together with a psychological interpretation emanating from Baghdad, rather soon after this interpretation was committed to writing there.
Then Idel returns to items of more interest in relation to the tarot. He mentions a reference to Lucca, as opposed to Rome, and the "Qalonymos" family, from Eleazar of Worms (p. 7), who was a member of that family. Again the highlighting is mine. I leave out the footnotes, since they are readily accessible and merely bibliographic.:And indeed, an important mid-thirteenth-century book written in Italy, R Tzidqiah's Shibbolei ha-Leqet, attributes a quotation that is taken almost verbatim from Heikhalot Rabbati to Ma'aseh Merkauah. 18 What is interesting from our point of view is the fact that elsewhere in the same book Ma'aseh Merkavah is quoted again, but this time the short statement found there is not traceable in the extant Heikhalot literature. 19 This opens the possibility that in medieval Italy there was material belonging to this literature, unknown from the extant sources.
Idel gives a translation of Eleazar's words, writing that his Ashkenazi predecessorsMore legendary is the account, replete with magical motifs, describing the arrival of esoteric literature from Baghdad in Lucca via the famous intermediary Aharon or Abu Aharon. 20 According to a tradition of R Eleazar of Worms, this figure transmitted the secrets of prayer to the representative of the Qalonymos family, R. Moshe.
Idel thinks, with Joseph Dan and Avraham Grossman, that apart from dates such accounts of the transmission of esoteric lore are in general reliable.received the secret of the structure [tiqqun] 21 of prayers and the other secrets rabbi from rabbi, up to Abu Aharon, the son of R. Shmuel the Prince, who came from Babylonia because of a certain deed, 22 and he had to wander from place to place, and they arrived in the land of Lombardy, in a town named Lucca, and there he found our Rabbi Moshe, who composed the poem "The Awe of Your Wonders," and transmitted to him all his secrets. He is our Rabbi Moshe, the son of our Rabbi Qalonymos, the son of our Rabbi Yehudah. 23 And he [Moshe] was the first to leave Lombardy together with his sons, Rabbi Qalonymos and our Rabbi Yequti'el, and his relative Yiti'el, and other important persons, who were brought by Charles [the Great] with him from Lombardy and were settled in Mainz. 24
A similar statement is found in an 11th century source, although it is Rome rather than Lucca:
This family appears to have settled not only in Mainz but also Narbonne, according to a publication called Sharsharet Hodorot, Vol. 17, No. 2, p. VI (at http://www.isragen.org.il/upload/infocenter/info_images/22042009143901@SHD-17-2-E.pdf). This same source explains that "Qalonymos" is Greek for "Good Name", "Shem Tov" in Hebrew. That is a name that appears in 15th century Italy. It is perhaps the same family.Rashi, the famous R Shlomo Yitzhaqi, testifies that he heard that a certain R. Qalonymos ben Sabbatai from Rome went to Worms and transmitted both legalist teachings and interpretations of poems that were quoted by Ashkenazi authors.
The same legendary Aharon who journeyed from Baghdad to Lucca is mentioned in another account as transmitting the lore to another family in Italy; there seems to have been a rivalry among families among who this Aharon favored. Idel says that the statements about the Qalonymos family suggest that the texts simply went to Germany, making little impression in Italy. Yet:
There would have continued to be contact between the two regions ("Ashkenazi" means, roughly, Germany, as opposed to "Saphardic", Spain and the Mediterranean generally). IIn an important recent study Ephraim Kanarfogel claims that we may describe the Italian elite in the mid-thirteenth century as an extension of the Ashkenazi elite. 35
In southern Italy, Idel notes (p. 10):
It is perhaps not coincidental that the Bahir is from Narbonne, where a branch of the Qalonos family had apparently settled. This work, the start of what Idel calls the "theosophical" Kabbalah of Provence and Spain, assigns each of the ten seforot a letter from aleph to teth and describes them in ways that were recognizably like what came later....the tenth century also marked the production of several philosophical works by R Sabbatai Donnolo, including a Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, that reflect an acquaintance with Neoplatonism...As Elliot R. Wolfson pointed out, in Donnolo's Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah there is a more complex understanding of the ten sefirot as reflecting some divine quality and as part of the divine power, ha-koah ha-^adol. 44 Following the view of David Neumark, Wolfson assumes that Donnolo may have had an impact on Sefer ha-Bahir, a book containing one of the first formulations of kabbalistic theosophies. 45 Indeed, I believe that Wolfson is correct in his analysis, though we may see Donnolo not as the source of this way of thought but as one more example of the development of theosophy found in some few Jewish sources written long before him. Donnolo's treatment of the sefirot not only demonstrates the survival and transmission of second-century material, which I have already analyzed elsewhere; 46 it also resembles a tradition found in a Samaritan book, in which God reveals a Glory, which is something like a second God, by means of ten ranks. 4
Meanwhile the so-called "Ashkenaz Hasidim", of which Eleazar of Worms is the best known representative, continued in Germany. This school concerned itself with gematria, i.e. the identification of different words in the Bible based on a common numerical value, and the attainment of mystical visions by continual re-arranging of the letters in certain words.
Idel then describes much interaction between Jewish theologians in Provence and in Italy, specifically focusing on Aristotelian philosophy and Maimonides. Unlike in Spain (about which more later), he sees no sign of influence on Jewish thought of Christian thought in Italy during this time (e.g. St. Francis), until the rise of Scholasticism, to which some Jewish thinkers were quite responsive. At the same time Jewish theosophists in Italy responded favorably to Kabbalist works from Spain.
Then came Abraham Abulafia (1240-after 1291), who in Idel's view synthesized two trends in esoteric Judaism, the German and Catalonian (or, one might speculate, the products of the two branches of the Qalonymos family).
Abulafia was in Italy twice. Idel says (p. 29):
Abulafia wrote all but his first book (written in Greece) in Italy: two in the Rome area (Capua is near Rome), after studying with Hillel of Verona, and all the rest in Sicily. While I cannot discuss Abulafia's ideas here, Idel mentions that he wrote extensively on two texts of importance in the Renaissance, namely, the Sefer Yetzirah and the works of Gikatilla, of which his Gates of Light in Latin translation was a major influence on Reuchlin.In the mid-1260s he was in Capua studying Jewish philosophy, especially the Guide of the Perplexed of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides)...In 1279 he returned to Italy and, after a short period of detention in Trani in the same year, again spent some months in Capua, where he taught his Kabbalah to four students. In 1280 he made an unsuccessful effort to meet Pope Nicholas III while the latter was in retreat in the castle of Soriano, near Rome. When Abulafia arrived at the castle, the pope suddenly died of apoplexy, and as a result Abulafia was imprisoned for two weeks in Rome by the Minorite Franciscans. In 1282 he was in Messina, Sicily, whither he presumably traveled immediately after his release from prison.
...
An errant teacher of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, 6 a mystic, a prophet, a messiah, a preacher of a new Kabbalah to both Jews and Christians, a prolific writer — these epithets describe Abraham Abulafia at the time of his arrival in Messina, where he would remain for the rest of his life, producing more than two-thirds of his extensive writings, which would contribute substantially to both the Jewish and the Christian cultures. 7
The Zohar, of course, is the most well known Spanish Kabbalist work; in Italy it appears first in the work of Menahem Recanati (1250-1310), Idel says. Idel characterizes Recanati as Neoplatonic, and Abulafia more Aristotelian. In the years after these two, even the followers of Abulafia shifted in a more Neoplatonic direction, Idel says (p. 142). The emphasis is on mystical "ascent", with the image of a "ladder", toward a "mystical death". Whether this material had any influence on Christian thought before the 15th century Idel does not say.
While Jewish thought in Italy was developing in the Neoplatonic direction, nonetheless with some influence from Christian Scholasticism, Aristotelian Scholasticism reigned supreme in Christian thought of the 14th century. It is only earlier that we can find Jewish influence on Christian thinkers, and even they are mostly outside of Italy, except for "heretics" and possibly "the discussions of Joachim de Fiore", as we will see Idel putting it.
For the influence of Jews on Christians, I turn first to Israel Newman's 1925 Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements, 1925. Newman observes that some monks of the Roman Church demonstrated more than cursory knowledge of Kabbalist works. Of one such, anonymous but possibly Roger Bacon, Newman says (pp. 65, 66; I omit the footnotes, which give some of the Latin original):
for his part Idel says (p. 227):His comments upon the astronomical learning of the Jews lead him to cite a Hebrew work on the "Tratragammaton," a "Liber Semamphorae" by a certain Solomon. It is entirely clear that the anonymous Christian scholar was acquainted with the Kabbalah or Jewish mystical lore: he mentions the "ars notoria" or "ars natorica," associated with Kabbalistic lore; he quotes certain legends connected with the magical properties of the "Ineffable Name," the building of the Temple, the miraculous name of the Messiah awaited by the Jews; and he includes important items indisputably were drawn from Jewish sources, the works of Rashi, Kimchi, and others.
We might wonder, in this light, whether a Christian writer may be declining to give his Jewish sources for fear of being labeled a "Judaizer" by his peers. That concept, perhaps even the term, existed long before Reuchlin was called that by his Dominican detractors, in hauling him before their Inquisition.Indeed, some passages dealing with divine names recur in Christian texts early in the thirteenth century, in the discussions of Joachim de Fiore. 3 At the end of the same century and early in the next, Arnauld of Villanova wrote a whole treatise dealing with the divine name. 4 Whether this treatise reflects the impact of Abraham Abulafia's Kabbalah remains to be investigated.
However, it is possible to approach the question from another angle: instead of regarding the passage of some traditions from one type of religion to another as the defining moment of the emergence of a certain new phenomenon, we should perhaps consider the absorption, especially the creative one, of the techniques that are characteristic of one type of lore by a thinker belonging to another religion. In our case, the question would be not when a Christian adopted some forms of Jewish esoteric traditions but when a Christian thinker adopted a kabbalistic type of thinking. Thus, the occurrence of a certain technique of interpreting the first word of the Bible by separating its letters in the work of the twelfth-century English theologian Alexander of Neckham, 5 or of the peculiar combination of letters by means of concentric circles and the theory of a hierarchy of glories in that of Ramon Llull, 6 apparently under the influence of Jewish sources, may fit this second approach.
Lacking in these examples is the Christian writer's explicit awareness that, when dealing with divine names or with combinatory techniques, he is operating in a realm of esoteric Jewish lore. However, such awareness apparently already existed in the last third of the thirteenth century, when Alfonso Sabio's nephew, Juan Manuel, testified about his famous uncle: "Furthermore, he ordered translated the whole law of the Jews, and even their Talmud, and other knowledge, which is called qabbalah and which the Jews keep closely secret. And he did this so it might be manifest through their own law that it is a [mere] presentation of that law which we Christians have; and that they, like the Moors, are in grave error and in peril of losing their souls." 7
Idel talks about Jewish influence on Christian use of "divine names". But already this tradition existed in Christian circles, albeit not with Jewish methodology. In the 9th century a collection of works attributed to Dionysius the Areopagyte, mentioned in the Bible as a disciple of Paul's, came to the West. Few could read Greek, but a readable translation was soon available done by John Scotus Eregina. Some of these especially parallel Jewish developments. One, On the Divine Names, gives different ways of characterizing the Christian God, archetypal qualities not dissimilar to those enumerated for the Jewish sefirot: holy of holy, king of kings, eternity, justice, ancient of days, omnipotence, pure goodness, and so on. Another work by this author, called "pseudo-Dionysius" today, was Celestial Hierachies, which described the mystical ascent through the spheres and the orders of angels that lay on the other side of the sphere of fixed stars. These writings were recognized in the Renaissance as not actually by Dionysius the Areopygite but rather by a Christian theologian who was adapting the pagan Neoplatonic framework of Proclus (412-485) to Christian purposes.
Ps.-Dionysius influenced numerous manuscripts describing a mystical ascent through a hierarchy of being. I will show a diagram from one of these later on, when discussing Raimon Llull, a Christian of Majorca who in Barcelona and elsewhere developed a system much influenced by Abulafia's ideas as well as those following pseudo-Dionysius.
Newman, too, mentions Llull (whom he calls "Lully"). Newman adds that Jewish converts to Christianity sought to demonstrate the truth of their new faith based on Jewish Kabbalist principles. He cites Peter Alphonso, baptized 1106, and a Paul Christian, whom the celebrated Kabbalist Nachmanides in Catalonia felt compelled to rebut for his attempts to derive the Trinity from Jewish principles. Arnold of Villanova--not a Jewish convert--did the same, attempting to derive the Trinity from the Tetragrammaton (all Newman p. 179-180).
This was a potent motive among Christian monks for reading putatively non-kabbalist Jewish rabbinical writings. Newman writes (p. 53):
The best known burning of the Talmud is something that took place in France in 1240, after a "debate" that was actually a trial (see David Berger in "The Jewish-Christian debate in the High Middle Ages", p. 495 of Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, edited by Jerome Cohen, in Google Books). In 1306 and again in 1394, the Jews were expelled en masse from France. Some of these were subsequently allowed into Italy as money-lenders; with them would have come their co-religionists in the countries from which they had been expelled.Just as Jews were prompted to study Latin in order to defend Judaism against Christian attack, so Christians were moved to study Hebrew for both apologetical and polemical purposes. ... During the thirteenth century the great debates over the burning of the Talmud stimulated Christian scholars, largely under the guidance of Jewish apostates, to devote themselves to Hebrew literary sources.
I presume that some of this knowledge of Hebrew sources came to Italy, which after all was the deciding place of what was to be permitted and what not in Jewish books and practice. To what extent the polemicists may have actually absorbed some of the Jewish teachings has yet to be investigated.
In the Middle Ages, moreover, dissident lay Christians, dissatisfied with the Church's monopoly on interpretation of books of the Old Testament, produced their own translations, against the express directives of the Church. The Waldensians, who started in Lyons but were active in Milan and Provence, produced biblical texts in the vernacular that differed from the Vulgate in various respects; placing manuscripts (none survive earlier than the end of the 14th century, although the first was in the 12th) side by side with the Hebrew and the Vulgate, the Waldensians' seem to derive from the Hebrew (Newman p. 220). It cannot be proved that they consulted Jews; but nobody at the time, not even Christian monks who translated rabbinical works into Latin (some of whom admitted consulting Jews), could have learned Hebrew without at least consulting converts from Judaism, according to Newman and an 1867 French authority he quotes (on p. 27), Soury. Hebrew was just too distantly related to Latin and other European languages, in a different language group in fact (Semitic); and moreover, the practice of leaving out vowels would have led to many words being spelled the same way.
(e) Interactions between Jews and Christians in Relation to Magic and Divination
Then there is the part of Jewish practice that Christian writers particularly abhorred and used as ammunition in their persecution of the Jews: magic and divination. I begin with Newman pp. 183-185:
For there to be interchange between Jews and Christians in this area, there have to be corresponding Jewish activitiesm as opposed to mere accusations. Newman does not give his sources for his claim that Christians went to Jews for magical results; and his source regarding dream interpretation involving Satan is a book on the Inquisition dealing with that material.Thus in times of drought during the Middle Ages, the people turned to the Jews, who were supposed to be able to cause rain; at moments of sickness or distress, we find Christians entering synagogues and following Jewish customs, a practice which arounsed even the wrath of the Popes at Rome. Jews were regarded as sorcerers, and we find mention made of Jewish magicians: Zambrio in Italy during the ninth century; Sicilian sorcerers even a century earlier, and in Germany through the entire Middle Ages. Guibert of Nogent is but one of many monks who sought to rouse popuar hostility against Jews by accusing them of practicing black magic, of celebrating the Black Mass, and engaging with heretics in other nefarious occupations. (30: REJ xlvi, 239, 243). In 1303 we find Philip the Fair, three years before the great Expulsion, forbidding the Inquisition to take cognizance of usury, sorcery and other offenses of the Jews. Jews were supposed to be astrologers, and coming from the East, were regarded as the heirs and successors of the Chaldeans; they were believed to have the power to fill the multitudes with awe and fear. (31: Bedarride, Les Juifs en France, pp. 49, 454; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, iv, 1212, Cassel, 16, 17, 52 et passim.) Because of the reputation which Biblical Jews had won as interpreters of dreams, their medieval descendants were accredited with like power. The question of oneiroscopy or divination of dreams was complicated by conflicting evidence in the Scriptures: Denteronomy, 18:10, it was forbidden, and the Vulgate included the observer of dreams in its denunciations; on the other hand, there were the examples of Joseph and Daniel, and the formal assertion of Job "When sleep falleth upon man, in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." (Job, 33:15, 16). In the twelfth century, the expounding of dreams was a recognized profession which does not seem to have been forbidden; John of Salisbury endeavors to prove that no reliance is to be placed on them; Joseph and Daniel were inspired, and short of inspiration no divination from dreams is to be trusted (Lea, iii, 445-447). In these and a multitude of practices, even in the development of the superstitions concerning Satan, Jews played a prominent part (32: Lea iii, 378). We mention these selected bits of information in order to indicate that during the Middle Ages the interchange of influence between Jews and Christians occurred not only in the upper strata of intellectual life, but also among the masses, thrown into daily association despite the protests of the highest authorities.
The part about rainmaking and the magician Zambrio and those of Sicily probably derives from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia's article on Magic (available online), which mentions all of this. The part about the medieval awe in which the Jewish astrologer was held is said also, in nearly the same language, in the same Encyclopedia's article on Astrology, giving abundant documentation. For dream interpretation, see the same Encyclopedia's article on that subject.
On the summoning of demons (not Satan, that I can find), some writings of Moshe Idel are to the point: see e.g. his essay "Jewish Magic from the Renaissance Period to Early Hassidism" in Religion, Science, and Magic in Concord and Conflict ed. J. Neusner (NY: Oxford U. Press, 1989); although he cites Renaissance Jewish sources, they in turn cite medieval ones. Also see Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004 (reprint from 1939), including, especially, the 2004 forward by Idel, which emphasizes that magic, while deprecated by many rabbis, was not the exclusive domain of the "folk". Idel's forward and some pages of Trachtenberg's first two chapters are at http://books.google.com/books/about/Jew ... rd_nQ-RTQC. On p. 21 Trachtenberg cites a rabbi characterizing astrology as a form of "science", not only for prediction of the future but for subduing the celestial powers and making talismans to bring those powers to earth. For his part, Idel, on p. xi-xii, has a long quote from Abulafia, the 13th century Kabbalist, mocking rabbis who provide instruction in linguistic magic, in that case reciting certain magical words, accompanided by certain motions, during "the time of Saturn", etc., for the purpose of attracting a member of the opposite sex.
Newman does not mention the many other forms of divination practiced by Jews, as well as other groups, in medieval times, some of which are alluded to in the Bible. The one most relevant to card-reading is divination by lots. Our only sure evidence of fortune-telling with cards is 16th century lot-books; they in turn seem to be an extension of lot-books written for dice.
The Jewish Encyclopedia discusses lots at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10123-lots. Here is what it says for the Middle Ages:
Bokhara is a city in present Uzbekistan. The use of lots to detect a thief is described in the Bible:The drawing of lots and its companion practise, the throwing of dice, were common in the Middle Ages; and they are even in vogue at the present time. Moses of Coucy (c. 1250) mentions xylomancy. Splinters of wood the rind of which had been removed on one side, were tossed up, and according as they fell on the peeled or the unpeeled side, augured favorably or unfavorably (Güdemann, "Gesch." i. 82). An Italian teacher denounced the casting of lots (ib. ii. 221). Dice-playing was especially in vogue among the Italian Jews of the Middle Ages, and was, as well as other games of hazard, frequently forbidden (ib. ii. 210). In Germany there was a game of chance, called "Rück oder Schneid," in which a knife was used (Berliner, p. 22). Many books on games of chance originated in the later Middle Ages (see bibliography below). The present writer has in his possession a Bokhara manuscript containing a "Lot-Book of Daniel." It mentions also means ("segullot") for detecting a thief.
Among pagans, the casting of lots had been seen as a way of learning the will of the gods. In Israel, similarly, it showed, in special circumstances, the will of God. When the disciples cast lots to see who God would choose as Judas's successor, they were surely following a Jewish tradition. The Jewish Encyclopedia says that in Greece the casting of lots degenerated into games of chance. But in the popular mind the two were not disconnected: it was not chance, but God, who favored the righteous, tested them with adversity, and gave omens as guidance.Joshua discovers the thief, and Saul the guilty one, by means of the lot (Josh. vii. 16 et seq.; I Sam. xiv. 42; comp. I Sam. x. 20 et seq.).
The idea that God, angels, or demons might direct throws of dice in a game governed by a book of verses was of course abhorrent to many Catholic preachers, and rabbis as well, and the same applied to the random drawing of cards. The use of tarot cards for this purpose (if they were) would have been even more abhorrent, because they included cards with sacred images on them, the Pope and the Angel. The Angel card (known later as Judgment), which showed an angel blowing a trumpet and people emerging from their graves below, might have been considered a "graven image" prohibited by the first commandment, recognized by Jews and Christians alike. This general idea is expressed in published rationales for placing lot-books on the Index of forbidden books in 1559. I have not found 16th century accounts, but a 17th century one is alluded to in an 18th century book (my translation follows the Italian):
Ménestrier is best known these days for having declared the “Charles VI” tarot to be the work of the artist Gringonneur in 1392. "Fontanini 1753" is Annotazioni to the Biblioteca della eloquenza italiana by Giusto Fontanini. My source for the above quote is “Le Risposte di Leonora Bianca: Un gioco di divinazione del tardo Rinascimento” by Eleonora Carinci, p. 170, at http://books.google.com/books?id=w6Kyui ... ca&f=false, which should be consulted for further details. As Carinci points out, Spirito's lot book (for use with dice) had the responses being given by biblical prophets. Sacred images had a role in securing the favor of God, and also those of designated saints, but only in the context of prayer and the imagery found in churches and prayer books.Il Padre Menestrier (l.c. pag. 407) condanna a ragione tutte queste sorte di giuochi, asserendo, che in verun modo non possono esser permessi, non solo a riguardo di tali indovinamenti, i quah sono mere fanfaluche, e chimere, ma perche in esse si fa abuso di cose sante, impiegandovi i nomi de’ Profeti, per dar mano a bugiarde risposte in quisiti vani, e profani; e pero a ragione tutti questi hbri di Ventura e di Sorti furono condannati dall’indice Tridentino (in Fontanini 1753, 190)
Father Ménestrier (l.c. p. 407) rightly condemns all this sort of games, asserting that in truth they cannot be allowed, not only in respect of such divination, which is mere balderdash, and chimaras, but because in essence they abuse holy things, impugning the names of the Prophets, giving into the hands of liars responses to vain and profane questions; so it is with reason that all these books of Fortune and Fates were condemned by the Tridentine index (in Fontanini 1753, 190).
I have two conclusions. The first is perhaps an obvious one, that Christians and Jews, while theologically separate, nonetheless continually interacted not only in daily life but even in religious matters, thanks to Christian efforts to convert Jews and the necessity for rabbis to counteract such efforts. Occasionally there were also Jewish efforts to convert Christians. My second conclusion is that Italy in the middle ages, with large Jewish populations in Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples, Rome, and elsewhere, was a fertile source of Kabbalist works that managed to embrace and even combine a variety of different trends in esoteric Judaism, from the Spanish theosophists to the Rhineland mystics to the "ecstatic" Kabbalah of Abulafia, all the while moving in a generally Neoplatonic direction.
WNow it is time to take a look at the 15th century.
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