Paul of Burgos
Encyclopedia
Paul of Burgos was a Spanish Jew who converted to Christianity
, and became an archbishop
, lord chancellor
, and exegete. He is known also as Pablo de Santa Maria, Paul de Santa Maria, and Pauli episcopi Burgensis. His original name was Solomon ha-Levi.
, a scholar of the first rank in Talmud
ic and rabbinical literature, and a rabbi
of the Jewish community. His father, Isaac ha-Levi, had come from Aragon or Navarre to Burgos in the middle of the fourteenth century. Solomon ha-Levi also apparently filled the office of tax-farmer at the same time.
His scholarship and intelligence, no less than his piety, won the praise of Isaac ben Sheshet
, with whom he carried on a learned correspondence.
baptism
on 21 July 1390 (or perhaps 1391) at Burgos, taking the name Paul de Santa Maria. French historian Leon Poliakov
writes that he converted in the aftermath of the great massacres of Jews which began on 6 June 1391. He himself said that he had been convinced by the works of Thomas Aquinas
. At the same time his brothers Pedro Suarez and Alvar Garcia, and his children, one daughter and four sons, aged from three to twelve years, were baptized. His wife, Joanna, whom he had married in his twenty-sixth year, remained faithful to Judaism, dying in that faith in 1420; she was afterward buried in the Church of S. Pablo, built by her husband.
Some historians have written that following his conversion, Paul, like fellow convert Joshua ha-Lorki (Gerónimo de Santa Fe)
took an active role in persecuting Spanish Jews. Kenneth Levin
has stated that when a wave of forced conversions of Jews to Christianity began in 1411, Paul "took a leading role in the assault on Spain’s remaining Jews and was responsible for drawing up edicts that isolated the Jews, stripped them of many communal rights, and, most importantly, deprived them of almost all means of earning a living, leaving them with the choice of death by privation for themselves and their families or conversion." Levin also argued that Paul converted for social and economic (as opposed to religious) reasons following a wave of anti-Jewish violence and forced conversions throughout Spain in 1391.
, receiving the degree of doctor of theology after several years. He then visited London
, where he probably remained only a short time, sending a Hebrew satire on Purim
to Don Meïr Alguades from that city.
He was appointed archdeacon of Treviño
, and in 1402 (or 1405) became Bishop of Cartagena; and in 1415, Archbishop of Burgos. He was succeeded in the see
of Burgos by his second son, Archbishop Alfonso of Burgos.
His intelligence and scholarship, as well as his gift of oratory, gained for him the confidence of King Henry III of Castile
, who in 1406 appointed him keeper of the royal seal, in succession to Pero Lopez de Ayala
. In 1416 King Henry named him lord chancellor
. After the king's death Archbishop Paul was a member of the council which ruled Castile
in the name of the regent Doña Catalina, and by the will of the deceased king he was tutor to the heir to the throne, the later John II of Castile
.
, and Joshua ibn Vives
, became a bitter enemy of Judaism. He tried his best, frequently with success, to convert his former coreligionists.
In the same spirit the chief object of the edict which he drafted as chancellor of the kingdom, and which was promulgated in the name of the regent, the widowed queen mother Catherine of Lancaster
, at Valladolid
on January 2 (not 12), 1412, was the conversion of the Jews. This law, which consisted of twenty-four articles, was designed to separate the Jews entirely from the Christians, to paralyze their commerce, to humiliate them, and to expose them to contempt, requiring them either to live within the close quarters of their ghetto
or to accept baptism
.
Impelled by his hatred of Talmud
ic Judaism, Paul in the year preceding his death composed the Dialogus Pauli et Sauli Contra Judæos, sive Scrutinium Scripturarum (Mantua, 1475; Mayence, 1478; Paris, 1507, 1535; Burgos, 1591), which subsequently served as a source for Alfonso de Spina, Geronimo de Santa Fé
, and other Spanish writers hostile to the Jews, and Martin Luther
in Germany for his treatise On the Jews and their Lies. A few years after his baptism he wrote Additiones (which consist of addenda to Nicholas of Lyra
's postil
s on the Bible
, and have been frequently printed), and in his old age a Historia Universal in Spanish verse.
It is chiefly on the latter work that Paul's reputation as an exegete rests. The Additiones were originally mere marginal notes written in a volume of the Postilla which he sent to his son Alfonso. Their publication aroused Matthias Döring
, the provincial
of the Saxon
Franciscans, to publish his Replicæ, a bitter rejection of almost half of the 1,100 suggestions and additions Paul had made.
These tracts are excerpts from the Additiones in regard to Exodus iii, and are joined to the scholia of J. Drusius on the correct pronunciation of the name of Jahweh.
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and became an archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
, lord chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, and exegete. He is known also as Pablo de Santa Maria, Paul de Santa Maria, and Pauli episcopi Burgensis. His original name was Solomon ha-Levi.
Early life
He was the most wealthy and influential Jew of BurgosBurgos
Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...
, a scholar of the first rank in Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
ic and rabbinical literature, and a rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
of the Jewish community. His father, Isaac ha-Levi, had come from Aragon or Navarre to Burgos in the middle of the fourteenth century. Solomon ha-Levi also apparently filled the office of tax-farmer at the same time.
His scholarship and intelligence, no less than his piety, won the praise of Isaac ben Sheshet
Isaac ben Sheshet
Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet was a Spanish Talmudic authority, also known by his acronym, Rivash . He was born at Valencia and settled early in life at Barcelona, where he studied under Perez ha-Kohen, under Hasdai ben Judah, and especially under R...
, with whom he carried on a learned correspondence.
Conversion
He received ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
on 21 July 1390 (or perhaps 1391) at Burgos, taking the name Paul de Santa Maria. French historian Leon Poliakov
Leon Poliakov
Léon Poliakov was a French historian who wrote extensively on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.Born into a Russian Jewish family, Poliakov lived in Italy and Germany until he settled in France....
writes that he converted in the aftermath of the great massacres of Jews which began on 6 June 1391. He himself said that he had been convinced by the works of Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
. At the same time his brothers Pedro Suarez and Alvar Garcia, and his children, one daughter and four sons, aged from three to twelve years, were baptized. His wife, Joanna, whom he had married in his twenty-sixth year, remained faithful to Judaism, dying in that faith in 1420; she was afterward buried in the Church of S. Pablo, built by her husband.
Controversy
See also: History of the Jews in SpainHistory of the Jews in Spain
Spanish Jews once constituted one of the largest and most prosperous Jewish communities under Muslim and Christian rule in Spain, before the majority, together with resident Muslims, were forced to convert to Catholicism, be expelled or be killed when Spain became united under the Catholic Monarchs...
Some historians have written that following his conversion, Paul, like fellow convert Joshua ha-Lorki (Gerónimo de Santa Fe)
Gerónimo de Santa Fe
Jerónimo de Santa Fe was a Spanish physician and religious writer who after conversion to Catholicism, wrote in Latin as Hieronymus de Sancta Fide ....
took an active role in persecuting Spanish Jews. Kenneth Levin
Kenneth Levin
Kenneth Levin is a Newton, Massachusetts psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege....
has stated that when a wave of forced conversions of Jews to Christianity began in 1411, Paul "took a leading role in the assault on Spain’s remaining Jews and was responsible for drawing up edicts that isolated the Jews, stripped them of many communal rights, and, most importantly, deprived them of almost all means of earning a living, leaving them with the choice of death by privation for themselves and their families or conversion." Levin also argued that Paul converted for social and economic (as opposed to religious) reasons following a wave of anti-Jewish violence and forced conversions throughout Spain in 1391.
Later life
Paul spent some years at the University of ParisUniversity of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, receiving the degree of doctor of theology after several years. He then visited London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he probably remained only a short time, sending a Hebrew satire on Purim
Purim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...
to Don Meïr Alguades from that city.
He was appointed archdeacon of Treviño
Treviño
Treviño is the capital of the municipality Condado de Treviño, province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. The Condado de Treviño and the geographically smaller La Puebla de Arganzón make up the enclave of Treviño...
, and in 1402 (or 1405) became Bishop of Cartagena; and in 1415, Archbishop of Burgos. He was succeeded in the see
Episcopal See
An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
of Burgos by his second son, Archbishop Alfonso of Burgos.
His intelligence and scholarship, as well as his gift of oratory, gained for him the confidence of King Henry III of Castile
Henry III of Castile
Henry III KG , sometimes known as Henry the Sufferer or Henry the Infirm , was the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon, and succeeded him as King of the Castilian Crown in 1390....
, who in 1406 appointed him keeper of the royal seal, in succession to Pero Lopez de Ayala
Pero López de Ayala
Don Pero López de Ayala was a Castilian statesman, historian, poet, chronicler, chancellor, and courtier. Ayala were one of the major aristocratic families of Castile; they were later claimed to be of the Jewish converso descent, but Pero's own father composed a genealogy tracing the family from...
. In 1416 King Henry named him lord chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
. After the king's death Archbishop Paul was a member of the council which ruled Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
in the name of the regent Doña Catalina, and by the will of the deceased king he was tutor to the heir to the throne, the later John II of Castile
John II of Castile
John II was King of Castile from 1406 to 1454.He was the son of Henry III of Castile and his wife Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster by Constance of Castile, daughter of King Peter of Castile.-Regency:He succeeded his father on 25 December 1406, at the age of...
.
Relationship to Judaism
Paul, who even after he had been baptized continued to correspond with several Jews, including Joseph Orabuena, chief rabbi of NavarreNavarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
, and Joshua ibn Vives
Gerónimo de Santa Fe
Jerónimo de Santa Fe was a Spanish physician and religious writer who after conversion to Catholicism, wrote in Latin as Hieronymus de Sancta Fide ....
, became a bitter enemy of Judaism. He tried his best, frequently with success, to convert his former coreligionists.
In the same spirit the chief object of the edict which he drafted as chancellor of the kingdom, and which was promulgated in the name of the regent, the widowed queen mother Catherine of Lancaster
Catherine of Lancaster
-Coat of arms:The following are Armorials of the House of Lancaster under her father, John of Gaunt.-References:* Anthony Goodman: "Katherine of Lancaster" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 30 , p. 890-891....
, at Valladolid
Valladolid
Valladolid is a historic city and municipality in north-central Spain, situated at the confluence of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers, and located within three wine-making regions: Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Cigales...
on January 2 (not 12), 1412, was the conversion of the Jews. This law, which consisted of twenty-four articles, was designed to separate the Jews entirely from the Christians, to paralyze their commerce, to humiliate them, and to expose them to contempt, requiring them either to live within the close quarters of their ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
or to accept baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
.
Impelled by his hatred of Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
ic Judaism, Paul in the year preceding his death composed the Dialogus Pauli et Sauli Contra Judæos, sive Scrutinium Scripturarum (Mantua, 1475; Mayence, 1478; Paris, 1507, 1535; Burgos, 1591), which subsequently served as a source for Alfonso de Spina, Geronimo de Santa Fé
Gerónimo de Santa Fe
Jerónimo de Santa Fe was a Spanish physician and religious writer who after conversion to Catholicism, wrote in Latin as Hieronymus de Sancta Fide ....
, and other Spanish writers hostile to the Jews, and Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
in Germany for his treatise On the Jews and their Lies. A few years after his baptism he wrote Additiones (which consist of addenda to Nicholas of Lyra
Nicholas of Lyra
Nicholas of Lyra , or Nicolaus Lyranus, a Franciscan teacher, was among the most influential practitioners of Biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages. He was a doctor at the Sorbonne by 1309 and ten years later was appointed the head of all Franciscans in France. His major work, Postillae perpetuae...
's postil
Postil
Postil or Postilla: a medieval Latin term for a marginal note or a Biblical commentary affixed to a text, being an abbreviation of the phrase post illa verba textus...
s on the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, and have been frequently printed), and in his old age a Historia Universal in Spanish verse.
Works
The published writings of Archbishop Paul were:- Dialogus Pauli et Sauli contra Judæos, sive Scrutinium scripturarum (Mantua, 1475; Mains, 1478; Paris, 1507, 1535; Burgos, 1591).
- Additiones to the Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra (Nuremberg, 1481; 1485; 1487, etc.; Venice, 1481, 1482, etc.).
It is chiefly on the latter work that Paul's reputation as an exegete rests. The Additiones were originally mere marginal notes written in a volume of the Postilla which he sent to his son Alfonso. Their publication aroused Matthias Döring
Matthias Döring
Matthias Döring was a German Franciscan historian and theologian. He was born and died at Kyritz, Brandenburg.-Life:...
, the provincial
Provincial superior
A Provincial Superior is a major superior of a religious order acting under the order's Superior General and exercising a general supervision over all the members of that order in a territorial division of the order called a province--similar to but not to be confused with an ecclesiastical...
of the Saxon
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
Franciscans, to publish his Replicæ, a bitter rejection of almost half of the 1,100 suggestions and additions Paul had made.
- De nomine divino quæstiones duodecim (Utrecht, 1707).
These tracts are excerpts from the Additiones in regard to Exodus iii, and are joined to the scholia of J. Drusius on the correct pronunciation of the name of Jahweh.