A disputation between Jewish and Christian scholars, (1483).

In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: disputationes, singular: disputatio) offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed rules governed the process: they demanded dependence on traditional written authorities and the thorough understanding of each argument on each side.

Medieval disputations[link]

Inter-faith disputations[link]

A significant category of disputations took place between Christian and Jewish theologians as a form of both theological and philosophical debate and proselytization. Often, the Christian side was represented by a recent convert from Judaism. Christians believed that only the refusal of the Jews to accept Christ stood in the way of the Second Coming.^{[citation needed]} The only way for the Jewish side to 'win' was to force a draw by drawing the Christian side into a position in which it was necessary to deny the Old Testament to win, committing heresy.^{[citation needed]} According to Michael J. Cook, "Since 'winning' a debate could well jeopardize the security of the Jewish community at large, political considerations certainly entered into what Jewish disputants publicly said or refrained from saying. ... Official transcripts of these proceedings, moreover, may not duplicate what actually transpired; in some places what they record was not the live action, as it were, but Christian polemical revision composed after the fact."^[1]

c. 1208. This 15th-century painting by Pedro Berruguete depicts the legend of Saint Dominic and his Albigensian disputant tossing their books into a fire. Saint Dominic's books miraculously leapt out of the fire.

• 1240 - the Disputation of Paris during the reign of Louis IX of France (St. Louis) between a member of the Franciscan Order Nicholas Donin, who earlier converted from Judaism and persuaded Pope Gregory IX to issue a bill ordering the burning of the Talmud, and four of the most distinguished rabbis of France: Yechiel of Paris, Moses of Coucy, Judah of Melun, and Samuel ben Solomon of Château-Thierry. The commission of Christian theologians condemned the Talmud to be burned and on June 17, 1244, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire in the streets of Paris.
• 1263 - the Disputation of Barcelona before King James I of Aragon: between the monk Pablo Christiani (a convert from Judaism) and Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (also known as Nachmanides). At the end of disputation, king awarded Nachmanides a monetary prize and declared that never before had he heard "an unjust cause so nobly defended."^[2] Nevertheless the Dominicans claimed the victory and Nachmanides was exiled and his report of the proceedings was condemned and burned. A committee appointed by the king censored the passages from the Talmud they deemed offensive.^[3]
• 1375 - public disputations held at Burgos and Avila by Moses Cohen de Tordesillas with converts from Judaism John of Valladolid and Abner of Burgos. Another disputation was held at about the same time in Pampeluna by Shem-Tob ben Isaac Shaprut of Tudela with Cardinal Don Pedro de Luna, afterward Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, the disputations being made the subjects of the books "'Ezer ha-Emunah" (by Moses) and "Eben Boḥan".^[4]
• 1413 - the Disputation of Tortosa in Spain, staged by the Antipope Benedict XIII. In result, the Pope gave instructions by which all books of the Talmud would be handed over to his functionaries for censorship.

Emergence of Protestantism (1518-1550)[link]

Martin Luther opened the Protestant Reformation by demanding a disputation upon his 95 theses, 31 October 1517. Although presented as a call to an ordinary scholastic dispute, the oral debate never occurred.^{[citation needed]}

Heidelberg Disputation (1518)[link]

During a convention held at Heidelberg in April, 1518, Luther directed a dispute on 28 theological and 40 philosophical theses. He was successful in winning over Johannes Brenz and the Dominican Martin Bucer.

Leipzig Disputation (1519)[link]

Johann Eck became involved in a literary contest with Andreas Karlstadt and challenged his adversary to a public debate. In Leipzig, although the faculty of the university entered a protest, and the Bishops of Merseburg and Brandenburg launched prohibitions and an excommunication, the disputation took place under the ægis of Duke George of Saxony. Eck came to Leipzig with one attendant; Luther and Karlstadt entered the city accompanied by an army of adherents, mostly students. From 27 June to 4 July (1519) Eck and Karlstadt debated the subject of free will and our ability to cooperate with grace. Eck forced his antagonist to make admissions which stultified the new Lutheran doctrine, whereupon Luther himself came forward to assail the dogma of Roman supremacy by divine right. The debate on papal primacy was succeeded by discussions of purgatory, indulgences, penance, etc. On 14 and 15 July, Karlstadt resumed the debate on free will and good works. Finally, Duke George declared the disputation closed, and each of the contendents departed, as usual, claiming the victory.

Of the two universities to which the final decision had been reserved, the University of Erfurt declined to intervene and returned the documents; the University of Paris sat in judgment upon Luther's writings, attaching to each of his opinions theological censure. Luther gained the support of Melanchthon.

The Leipzig Disputation was the last occasion on which the ancient custom of swearing to advance no tenet contrary to Catholic doctrine was observed. In all subsequent debates between Catholics and Protestants, the bare text of Holy Writ was taken as the authority. This placed the Catholics in a disadvantageous position. This was particularly the case in Switzerland, where Zwingli and his lieutenants organized a number of one-sided debates under the presidency of town councils already won over to Protestantism. Such were the disputations of Zurich, 1523, of Swiss Baden, 1526, and of Berne, 1528. In all of these the result was the abolition of Catholic worship and in their opinion the desecration of churches and religious institutions.

Diet of Ratisbon (1541)[link]

The Emperor Charles V tried to bring the religious troubles of Germany to a "speedy and peaceful termination" by conferences between the Catholic and the Protestant divines. The Protestants proclaimed their determination to adhere to the terms of the Augsburg Confession, and, in addition, formally repudiated the authority of the Roman pontiff and "would admit no other judge of the controversy than Jesus Christ"; both Pope Paul III and Luther predicted failure. However, since the emperor and his brother, King Ferdinand, persisted in making a trial, the pope authorized his nuncio, Giovanni Morone, to proceed to Speyer, whither the meeting had been summoned for June, 1540. As the plague was raging in that city the conference took place in Hagenau. Neither the Elector of Saxony nor the Landgrave of Hesse could be induced to attend. Melanchthon was absent through illness. The leading Protestant theologians at the conference were Bucer, Brenz, Oswald Myconius, Ambrosius Blarer, and Urbanus Rhegius. The most prominent on the Catholic side were Johann Faber, Bishop of Vienna, and Eck. Present was John Calvin, then exiled from Geneva; he appeared as confidential agent of the King of France. After a month, King Ferdinand prorogued the conference to reassemble at Worms on 28 October.

Undismayed by the failure of the Hagenau conference, the emperor made more strenuous efforts for the success of the coming colloquy at Worms. He dispatched his minister Granvelle and Ortiz, his envoy, to the papal court. The latter brought with him the Jesuit Peter Faber. The pope sent the Bishop of Feltri, Tommaso Campeggio, brother of the cardinal, and ordered Morone to attend. They were not to take part in the debates, but were to watch events closely and report to Rome. Granvella opened the proceedings at Worms, 25 November, with an eloquent and conciliatory address. He pictured the evils which had befallen Germany, "once the first of all nations in fidelity, religion, piety, and divine worship", and warned his hearers that "all the evils that shall come upon you and your people, if, by clinging stubbornly to preconceived notions, you prevent a renewal of concord, will be ascribed to you as the authors of them." On behalf of the Protestants, Melanchthon returned "an intrepid answer"; he threw all the blame upon the Catholics, who refused to accept the new Gospel.

A great deal of time was spent in wrangling over points of order; finally it was decided that Eck should be spokesman for the Catholics and Melanchthon for the Protestants. The debate began 14 January 1541. The Augsburg Confession as the basis of the conference; the Augsburg Confession of 1540 was a different document from the Confession of 1530, having been changed by Melanchthon to suit his sacramentarian view of the Eucharist. Eck and Melanchthon battled four days over the topic of original sin and its consequences, and a formula was drafted to which both parties agreed, the Protestants with a reservation.

At this point Granvella suspended the conference, to be resumed at Ratisbon, whither the emperor had summoned a diet, which he promised to attend in person. This diet, from which the emperor anticipated brilliant results, was called to order 5 April 1541. As legate of the pope appeared Cardinal Contarini, assisted by the nuncio Morone. Calvin was present, ostensibly to represent Lüneburg, in reality to foster discord in the interest of France. As collocutors at the religious conference which met simultaneously, Charles appointed Eck, Pflug, and Gropper for the Catholic side, and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Pistorius for the Protestants. A document of mysterious origin, the Ratisbon Book, was presented by Joachim of Brandenburg as the basis of agreement. This compilation, it developed later, was the result of secret conferences, held during the meeting at Worms, between the Protestants, Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, on one side, and the Lutheranizing Gropper and a secretary of the emperor named Veltwick on the other. It consisted of twenty-three chapters, in which the attempt was made so to formulate the controverted doctrines that each party might find its own views therein expressed. How much Charles and Granvella had to do in the transaction, is unknown; they certainly knew and approved of it. The "Book" had been submitted by the Elector of Brandenburg to the judgment of Luther and Melanchthon; and their contemptuous treatment of it augured ill for its success.

When it was shown to the legate and Morone, the latter was for rejecting it summarily; Contarini, after making a score of emendations, notably emphasizing in Article 14 the dogma of Transubstantiation, declared that now "as a private person" he could accept it; but as legate he must consult with the Catholic theologians. Eck secured the substitution of a conciser exposition of the doctrine of justification. Thus emended, the "Book" was presented to the collocutors by Granvella for consideration. The first four articles, treating of man before the fall, free will, the origin of sin, and original sin, were accepted. The battle began in earnest when the fifth article, on justification, was reached. After long and vehement debates, a formula was presented by Bucer and accepted by the majority, so worded as to be capable of bearing a Catholic and a Lutheran interpretation. Naturally, it was unsatisfactory to both parties. The Holy See condemned it and administered a severe rebuke to Contarini for not protesting against it. No greater success was attained as to the other articles of importance.

On 22 May the conference ended, and the emperor was informed as to the articles agreed upon and those on which agreement was impossible. Charles was sorely disappointed, hut he was powerless to effect anything further. The decree known as the Ratisbon Interim, published 28 July 1541, enjoining upon both sides the observance of the articles agreed upon by the theologians, was by both sides disregarded.

Equally without result was the last of the conferences summoned by Charles at Ratisbon, 1546, just prior to the outbreak of the Smalkaldic War.^[5]

Colloquy at Poissy (1561)[link]

Disputation in the Bible[link]

The word disputation occurs twice in the King James Version of the Bible.

• "When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question." (Book of Acts 15:2)
• "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." (Epistle to the Romans 14:1)

See also[link]

• Polemic
• Dispute between a man and his Ba
• Dispute between bird and fish

In fiction[link]

• Hyam Maccoby (2001), The Disputation, Calder Publications Ltd, Paperback. ISBN 0-7145-4317-9.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1979)
• Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982).
• Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth Century Christian Missionizing and the Jewish Response (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
• Martin A. Cohen, Reflections on the Text and Context of the Disputation of Barcelona, Hebrew Union College Annual 35 (1964): pp. 157–92.
• Georgiana Donavin, Carol Poster, and Richard Utz, eds. Medieval Forms of Argument: Disputation and Debate (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2002.)
• Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemic against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York: Ktav, 1977).
• Hyam Maccoby, ed. and trans., Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (East Brunswick, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1982)
• Oliver S. Rankin, ed., Jewish Religious Polemic (Edinburgh: University Press, 1956)
• Frank E. Talmage, ed., Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter (New York: Ktav, 1975)

External links[link]

• The Disputation from daat.co.il (Hebrew)
• The Disputation of the Ramban, Torah613 (Hebrew)
• Jewish Encyclopedia article on Disputations
•  "Religious Discussions". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Religious Discussions". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

John Newton.

John Henry Newton (July 24, 1725 – December 21, 1807) was a British sailor and Anglican clergyman. Starting his career at sea, at a young age, he became involved with the slave trade for a few years. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a minister, hymn-writer, and later a prominent supporter of the abolition of slavery. He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken."

Early life[link]

John Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton Sr., a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth Newton (née Seatclife), a Nonconformist Christian. His mother died of tuberculosis in July, 1732, about two weeks before his seventh birthday.^[1] Two years later, he went to live in Aveley, the home of his father's new wife.^[2] Newton spent two years at boarding school. At age eleven he went to sea with his father. Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. Newton's father made plans for him to work at a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1743, while on the way to visit some friends, Newton was captured and pressed into the naval service by the Royal Navy. He became a midshipman aboard HMS Harwich. At one point, Newton attempted to desert and was punished in front of the crew of 350. Stripped to the waist, tied to the grating, he received a flogging of one dozen lashes, and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.^{[3][unreliable source?]}

Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated suicide.^{[3][unreliable source?]} He recovered, both physically and mentally. Later, while Harwich was on route to India, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa. The ship carried goods to Africa, and traded them for slaves to be shipped to England and other countries.

Newton proved to be a continual problem for the crew of Pegasus. They left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer. Clowe took Newton to the coast, and gave him to his wife Princess Peye, an African duchess. Newton was abused and mistreated along with her other slaves. It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa."

Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him, he made it to freedom.^{[citation needed]}

In 1750 he married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Catlett, in St. Margaret's Church, Rochester^[4].

Spiritual conversion[link]

He sailed back to England in 1748 aboard the merchant ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood. During this voyage, he experienced a spiritual conversion. The ship encountered a severe storm off the coast of Donegal and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and finally called out to God as the ship filled with water. After he called out, the cargo came out and stopped up the hole, and the ship was able to drift to safety. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of evangelical Christianity. The date was March 10, 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, he had gained a considerable amount of sympathy for the slaves. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."^[5]

Newton returned to Liverpool, England and, partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, obtained a position as first mate aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. During the first leg of this voyage, while in west Africa (1748–1749), Newton acknowledged the inadequacy of his spiritual life. While he was sick with a fever, he professed his full belief in Christ and asked God to take control of his destiny. He later said that this experience was his true conversion and the turning point in his spiritual life. He claimed it was the first time he felt totally at peace with God.

Still, he did not renounce the slave trade until later in his life. After his return to England in 1750, he made three further voyages as captain of the slave-trading ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752–1753 and 1753–1754). He only gave up seafaring and his active slave-trading activities in 1754, after suffering a severe stroke, but continued to invest his savings in Manesty's slaving operations."^[6]

Anglican priest[link]

In 1755 Newton became tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, he was able to study Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, he applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted.

Such was his frustration during this period of rejection that he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians, and applications were even mailed directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

Eventually, in 1764, he was introduced by Thomas Haweis to Lord Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton to the Bishop of Chester, and who suggested him for the living of Olney, Buckinghamshire. On 29 April 1764 Newton received deacon's orders, and finally became a priest on June 17.

As curate of Olney, Newton was partly sponsored by an evangelical philanthropist, the wealthy Christian merchant John Thornton, who supplemented his stipend of £60 a year with £200 a year "for hospitality and to help the poor". He soon became well known for his pastoral care, as much as for his beliefs, and his friendship with Dissenters and evangelical clergy caused him to be respected by Anglicans and Nonconformists alike. He spent sixteen years at Olney, during which time so popular was his preaching that the church had a gallery added to accommodate the large numbers who flocked to hear him.

Some five years later, in 1772, Thomas Scott, later to become a biblical commentator and co-founder of the Church Missionary Society, took up the curacy of the neighbouring parishes of Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood. Newton was instrumental in converting Scott from a cynical 'career priest' to a true believer, a conversion Scott related in his spiritual autobiography The Force Of Truth (1779).

In 1779 Newton was invited by John Thornton to become Rector of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London, where he officiated until his death. The church had been built by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1727 in the fashionable Baroque style. Newton then became one of only two evangelical preachers in the capital, and he soon found himself gaining in popularity amongst the growing evangelical party. He was a strong supporter of evangelicalism in the Church of England, and remained a friend of Dissenters as well as Anglicans.

Many young churchmen and others enquiring about their faith visited him and sought his advice, including such well-known social figures as the writer and philanthropist Hannah More, and the young Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who had recently undergone a crisis of conscience and religious conversion as he was contemplating leaving politics. Having sought his guidance, Newton encouraged Wilberforce to stay in Parliament and "serve God where he was".^[7][8]

In 1792, he was presented with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

Abolitionist[link]

Newton in his later years

In 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet "Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade", in which he described the horrific conditions of the slave ships during the Middle Passage, and apologized for "a confession, which ... comes too late ... It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." A copy of the pamphlet was sent to every MP, and sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting.^[9]

Newton became an ally of his friend William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. He lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807.

Newton has been called hypocritical by some modern writers for continuing to participate in the slave trade while holding strong Christian convictions. Newton later came to believe that during the first five of his nine years as a slave trader he had not been a Christian in the full sense of the term: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time later."^[10] Although this "true conversion" to Christianity also had no immediate impact on his views on slavery, he eventually came to revise them.

Writer and hymnist[link]

The vicarage in Olney where Newton wrote the hymn that would become "Amazing Grace".

In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in the church, and collaborated with Newton on a volume of hymns, which was eventually published as Olney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!", "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder", "Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare", "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-seat", and "Faith's Review and Expectation", which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace".

Many of Newton's (as well as Cowper's) hymns are preserved in the Sacred Harp. He also contributed to the Cheap Repository Tracts.

Also, he wrote an anonymous autobiography called An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable And Interesting Particulars in the Life of ------ Communicated, in a Series of Letters, to the Reverend T. Haweiss.

Commemoration[link]

The gravestone of John Newton in Olney with the epitaph he penned.

• The town of Newton, Sierra Leone is named after John Newton. To this day there is a philanthropic link between John Newton's church of Olney and Newton, Sierra Leone.

• Newton was recognized for his hymns of longstanding influence by the Gospel Music Association in 1982 when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Portrayals in literature, movies and other media[link]

• Newton is portrayed by actor John Castle in the 1975 British television miniseries "The Fight Against Slavery."
• Caryl Phillips's novel Crossing the River (1993) includes nearly verbatim excerpts from Newton's books.
• Newton is played by the actor Albert Finney in the 2006 film Amazing Grace, which highlights Newton's influence on William Wilberforce. Directed by Michael Apted, this film portrays Newton as a penitent who is haunted by the ghosts of 20,000 slaves.
• Newton is also played by the actor Nick Moran in another 2006 film The Amazing Grace. The creation of Nigerian director/writer/producer Jeta Amata, the film provides a refreshing and creative African perspective on the familiar "Amazing Grace" theme. Nigerian actors Joke Silva, Mbong Odungide, and Fred Amata (brother of the director) portray Africans who are captured and wrested away from their homeland by slave traders.
• African Snow, a play by Murray Watts, takes place in Newton's mind. It was first produced at the York Theatre Royal as a co-production with Riding Lights Theatre Company in April 2007 before transferring to the Trafalgar Studios in London's West End and a National Tour. Newton was played by Roger Alborough and Olaudah Equiano by Israel Oyelumade.

References[link]

The historical novel The Longing Season by Christine Schaub tells the story of the courtship of John Newton and Mary Catlett. It is second in the author’s Music of the Heart series.

Bibliography[link]

• Aitken, Jonathan, John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace (Crossway Books, 2007).
•  Bennett, H. L. (1885–1900). "Newton, John (1725-1807)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 
• Hindmarsh, D. Bruce. John Newton in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: University Press, 2004)
• Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery (Basingstoke: Pan Macmillan, 2005)
• Turner, Steve, "Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song" (New York: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2002)
• Rediker, Marcus, The Slave Ship: A Human History (Viking, 2007)
• JohnNewton.org (2007)
• Bruner, Kurt & Ware, Jim, "Finding GOD in the Story of AMAZING GRACE" (Tyndale, 2007)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Newton

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Newton

• The John Newton Project
• Famous Quotes by John Newton
• Biography & Articles on Newton
• Amazing Grace: The Song, Author and their Connection to County Donegal in Ireland
• Amazing Grace: Some Early Tunes
• The Cowper and Newton Museum, Olney
• Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade By John Newton. Published in 1788. Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection. {Reprinted by}Cornell University Library Digital Collections

Pablo Christiani (or Paul Christian), a figure of the thirteenth century, was born to a pious Jewish family, with the name Saul.^[1] He became a Christian convert and Dominican friar.

He was believed to have been a student of Rabbi Eliezer of Tarascon.^[2] He married a Jewish woman and had children with her. Later, he converted to Christianity and took his children from his wife and made them Christians.^[3] He then joined the Dominican Order.^[1] Prior to the 1263 Disputation of Barcelona, he was known for following Nicholas Donin's lead in attempting to ban the Talmud. His arguments centered on the "irrational" material within the text.^[4] His participation in the Disputation of Barcelona with Nahmanides was to try his new missionary technique to bring Jews to Christianity.

The failure in the Disputation did not, however, discourage Christiani. Provided through the agency of Raymond de Penyafort with letters of protection from King James I of Aragon, he went on missionary journeys, compelling the Jews everywhere to listen to his speeches and to answer his questions, either in their synagogues or wherever else he pleased. They were even required to defray the expenses of his mission.

In spite of the protection granted him by the king, Christiani did not meet with the success he had expected; he therefore went to Pope Clement IV and denounced the Talmud, asserting that it contained passages derogatory to Jesus and Mary. The pope issued a bill (1264) to the Bishop of Tarragona, commanding him to submit all the copies of the Talmud to the examination of the Dominicans and Franciscans. A commission was then appointed by the king, Christiani being one of its members, to act as censors of the Talmud; and they obliterated all passages which seemed to them to be hostile to Christianity. In 1269 Christiani interceded with King Louis IX of France and obtained from him the enforcement of the canonical edict requiring Jews to wear badges.

See Also[link]

• Criticism of Judaism
• Criticism of the Talmud

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Kobak, Joseph Jeschurun pg.21
2. ^ Lattes, Isaac "Kiryat Sefer" in Medieval Hebrew Chronicles II pg. 238
3. ^ Kobak, Joseph Jeschurun pgs.21-22
4. ^ Kobak, Joseph Jeschurun, pgs.1-15

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Jewish Encyclopedia. 1901–1906.