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dominikus28
Guest
Contra Hebreos retinentes libros by Pope Julius III, anyone heard of it? What it it? I heard a friend talking about it
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Magnanimity
Guest
Hmm…not sure, that phrase looks more like Spanish than Latin to me. “Against the Hebrews ___________ books.” not sure about the word ‘retinentes’
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Ignatius
Guest
No, I did a search, there is no such document. There were no encyclicals or Papal bulls written in Spanish.
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juliamajor
Guest
I searched legitimate historical websites.Found nothing.On the other hand I found some sites that keep repeating the same “sources” over and over again-dubious to say the least.If you can’t find more then a single source to back a statement up then it is a false statement most likely, a black legend , protestant propaganda or just trash.
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Ignatius
Guest
I agree, in fact, I would go even further and say that if you can’t find an Authoritative Catholic source from The Vatican, then it is false!
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utunumsint
Guest
Actually, I think this one may be legit.
Based on an author I’ve read, Thomas Madden, there was a pope who actually declared that the Talmud, which contained rabbinic writings on the law and tradition, were heretical, even though strictly speaking, they would be considered a Jewish heresy. The church has always respected Jews who followed the Torah and other Old Testament writings.
Anyway, I’ll try to dig up the quote.
God bless,
Ut
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utunumsint
Guest
Here is the quote form Madden:
God bless,
Ut
The only sources he provides are the following and no mention of Julius:
Maybe Julius was basing himself on Innocent IV.
God bless,
Ut
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Ignatius
Guest
How do you get that? There is no such Encyclical. No Spanish encyclicals or bulls were published. That “I think I read that someone said that someone wrote …” type of logic is too confused and weak. We need primary evidence.
Perhaps the problem is the the person got the title wrong. It is supposed to be a papal writing so, if it is, give us a link to the papal writing along with the correct title.
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Ignatius
Guest
How do you get that? It is supposed to be a paple writing and There is no such Encyclical. No Spanish encyclicals or bulls were published. That “I think I read that someone said that someone wrote …” type of logic is too confused and weak. We need primary evidence.
Perhaps the problem is the the person got the title wrong. It is supposed to be a papal writing so, if it is, give us a link to the papal writing along with the correct title.
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utunumsint
Guest
Well here is my thinking so far:
1-I’ve read a lot of Madden’s historical work, and I have to say I trust his judgement. He is obviously Catholic, very sympathetic to the Catholic point of view in his historical narrative, so I don’t believe he would write something that was false. (At least about Pope Innocent IV).
2-I agree that I we can’t find a source of this quote on the internet. But there are huge gaps in the historical writings of the pope on the internet. For example, I have a volume of writings of Pope Gregory VII, and I cannot find any corresponding version of it on the internet.
3-The actual translation of the latin title of this thread is “Retaining the books against the Hebrews” Retinentes is a form of retinere, and libros is books. So just from the title alone, it seems as though Julius was intent on protecting the orthodoxy of Jews, assuming the writing actually exists.
4-I admit that I don’t know if this document actually exists. You are right that all the instances I can find on the internet all point to the exact same quote and explanatory phrase. It would be really good to get the real document to find out exactly what the pope was saying.
God bless,
Ut
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chosen_people
Guest
On August 12, 1553, Pope Julian III ordered the confiscation and burning of the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud was burned in Rome on September 9,1553 and then throughout other cities, reaching its zenith in Venice on October 21, 1553. (see also “si vera sunt” the papal bull by Gregory IX in 1239 addressed to Spain and France, ordering the seizure and examination of the Talmud and all other books suspected of blasphemies against Jesus and Christianity. The ordering of the burning of Jewish books will occur several times between the 13th to 16th centuries such as under Pope Jullian III).
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Ignatius
Guest
Then what are you arguing about? I’m sorry, but your logic evades me.
The OP claims a Papal document with a given title.As I originally stated: There is no such document. That’s pretty much where it stands unless someone can produce the subject titled encyclical letter.
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utunumsint
Guest
The logic is simple: the quotes I found regarding this document center around the suppersion of the Jewish Talmud. Regardless of whether the document exists or not, I have found evidence for the exact same suppression in earlier popes. Its just a fact of history.
God bless,
Ut
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Ignatius
Guest
Again, the OP involves false claims of a Papal document with a given title, that is the subject of this thread. There is no such document so, unless someone can product the encyclical with that title, it is a false accusation.
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chosen_people
Guest
The fact is that on August 12, 1553, Pope Julian III ordered the confiscation and burning of the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud. If you have any doubts as to the accuracy of that historical fact, may I suggest you make inquiries at the history department of the nearest university or college where no doubt they will be able to assuage any of your doubts.
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utunumsint
Guest
I agree. Just because the document cannot be found on the internet does not mean that it does not exist.
From a Christian perspective, I can see why the Pope would do this. The middle ages had no sense of secularity. A state was explicitly religious, headed by a monarch whose legitimacy depended on the idea that he was appointed by God. That Papacy had an overarching responsibility to defend the flock of God from error, and so when the popes read anti Christian sentiments in the Talmud, it innevitably came under the condemnation of the papacy. From their perspective, it was a perfectly justifiable action.
There is even precedence for such action in the Bible itself. God called the choosen people to destroy the altars of foreign gods, the Baals, the Ashera poles, the high places, the altars to Moloch. In fact, to allow for such religious diversity was seen as a cause of the calamities which the Jews suffered in the Babylonian exile.
I’m just bringing this up to provide some historical perspective to this discussion. Secularism and religious tolerance is something very new to the history of mankind. To project back out Vatican II understanding of the Church’s relation to other religions is anachronistic.
God bless,
Ut
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Ignatius
Guest
The OP does not make that claim, It claims a nonexistant papal document with the given title. The document does not exist, there is no such document. If there is an issue other thant the false claim of this papal document, that is a subject for another thread.
Starting by making a false claim to the existance of a document is no way to start an intelligent conversation. If you want to get somewhere in a conversation you need to start with accurate facts, as you have, but that is not the subject of the OP
Please start a thread on that subject so we can discuss it. This thread, however, is on the subject of the existance or non-existance of a document titled Contra Hebreos.
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Nicholas_Donin
Guest
I realize that this thread is quite old. However, as I am engaged in a research project that required my attention to the document named in the “header,” I feel some burden to register a few points.
Number one, the document exists, more or less as titled.
A. See, e.g., the archival entry at Google’s electronic book depository.
books.google.com/books?id=iHpsYgEACAAJ
B. See, also, the article on “Julius III…,” in the 1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia (JE), online at the following URL.
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9083-julius-iii-giovanni-maria-del-monte
Number two, as one can see from an inspection of the Encyclopedia entry (supra.), and as one could probably also guess from my phrase “more or less as titled,” there is one feature of the bona fide edict’s title that may have caused certain respondents to mistake the Latin for Spanish.
To be more exact, the title is given by the JE as “Contra Hebræos Retinentes Libros Thalmudis”. In case this forum does not retain the special character, I will retype the title as “Contra Hebraeos Retinentes Libros Thalmudis”.
The word “Hebræos” is “Hebraeos” where the “a” and “e” have been replaced with the printing ligature known as the miniscule ash. Not uncommonly, in scanned reproductions of older books, the ligatures get uneven - and sometimes haphazard - treatment. Possibly, this accounts for the initial poster’s word “hebreos” as well as the Spanish-looking text.
Number three, apart from the issue of the ligature, the remainder of the title is perfectly respectable Latin, as posted - eh… with one 8little* caveat
)
“Contra” is straightforward: it’s a Latin preposition meaning “against,” “on the contrary,” “on the other hand,” etc.
“retinentes” is a little more oblique; it’s a participial form of “retineo,” from “re-” “teneo” (that is, “I hold back”).
“libros” is the accusative plural form (i.e., “books” acting as direct object) of “liber” (“book,” singular), as one can see from the list reproduced, here:
latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:liber
To be precise, “libros” is the accusative of “liber” in a style of Ecclesiastical Latin that has been employed from time to time. Other forms of Latin retain the “e” in the accusative, yielding “liberos”, as one can see, here:
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liber#Latin
The entire title listed at the Google link (loc. cit.) makes extracting comprehensible English a little easier.
If one sets the source language to “Latin” and plugs into Google’s Translation engine the string: “Contra hebreos retinentes libros in quibus aliquid contra fidem catholicam notetur vel scribatur”; one obtains the following, not altogether incoherent, English text:
“On the other hand, keeping the books in which the Hebrews noted or [wrote] anything against the Catholic faith”.
In summation:
On May 29, 1554, Pope Julius III did in fact issue an edict (bulla) titled (something in the vicinity of):
“Contra Hebræos Retinentes Libros”,
“Contra Hebreos Retinentes Libros”,
“Contra Hebreos Retinentes Liberos”, or some permutation thereof.
In this bull, according to the JE:
“[T]he Jews were ordered, on pain of severe punishment, to give up within four months all books supposed to contain blasphemies against Jesus; such books to be revised by Christian censors, and the suspected passages expunged.” (Op. cit.)
Julius’s edict was hardly exceptional. The Talmud has been interdicted - eiter by confiscation, generic prohibition, or outright destruction - by numerous other pontiffs, including (without limitation) Gregory IX, Innocent IV, Clement IV, Benedict XIII (anti-pope), Gregory XIII, and Clement VIII.
For an introduction, one should consult the article “Talmud,” JE, 1906, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14213-talmud.
Pax vobiscum
(“Peace to you, plural”
~ ΝΔ
Number one, the document exists, more or less as titled.
A. See, e.g., the archival entry at Google’s electronic book depository.
books.google.com/books?id=iHpsYgEACAAJ
B. See, also, the article on “Julius III…,” in the 1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia (JE), online at the following URL.
jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9083-julius-iii-giovanni-maria-del-monte
Number two, as one can see from an inspection of the Encyclopedia entry (supra.), and as one could probably also guess from my phrase “more or less as titled,” there is one feature of the bona fide edict’s title that may have caused certain respondents to mistake the Latin for Spanish.
To be more exact, the title is given by the JE as “Contra Hebræos Retinentes Libros Thalmudis”. In case this forum does not retain the special character, I will retype the title as “Contra Hebraeos Retinentes Libros Thalmudis”.
The word “Hebræos” is “Hebraeos” where the “a” and “e” have been replaced with the printing ligature known as the miniscule ash. Not uncommonly, in scanned reproductions of older books, the ligatures get uneven - and sometimes haphazard - treatment. Possibly, this accounts for the initial poster’s word “hebreos” as well as the Spanish-looking text.
Number three, apart from the issue of the ligature, the remainder of the title is perfectly respectable Latin, as posted - eh… with one 8little* caveat
)“Contra” is straightforward: it’s a Latin preposition meaning “against,” “on the contrary,” “on the other hand,” etc.
“retinentes” is a little more oblique; it’s a participial form of “retineo,” from “re-” “teneo” (that is, “I hold back”).
“libros” is the accusative plural form (i.e., “books” acting as direct object) of “liber” (“book,” singular), as one can see from the list reproduced, here:
latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:liber
To be precise, “libros” is the accusative of “liber” in a style of Ecclesiastical Latin that has been employed from time to time. Other forms of Latin retain the “e” in the accusative, yielding “liberos”, as one can see, here:
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liber#Latin
The entire title listed at the Google link (loc. cit.) makes extracting comprehensible English a little easier.
If one sets the source language to “Latin” and plugs into Google’s Translation engine the string: “Contra hebreos retinentes libros in quibus aliquid contra fidem catholicam notetur vel scribatur”; one obtains the following, not altogether incoherent, English text:
“On the other hand, keeping the books in which the Hebrews noted or [wrote] anything against the Catholic faith”.
In summation:
On May 29, 1554, Pope Julius III did in fact issue an edict (bulla) titled (something in the vicinity of):
“Contra Hebræos Retinentes Libros”,
“Contra Hebreos Retinentes Libros”,
“Contra Hebreos Retinentes Liberos”, or some permutation thereof.
In this bull, according to the JE:
“[T]he Jews were ordered, on pain of severe punishment, to give up within four months all books supposed to contain blasphemies against Jesus; such books to be revised by Christian censors, and the suspected passages expunged.” (Op. cit.)
Julius’s edict was hardly exceptional. The Talmud has been interdicted - eiter by confiscation, generic prohibition, or outright destruction - by numerous other pontiffs, including (without limitation) Gregory IX, Innocent IV, Clement IV, Benedict XIII (anti-pope), Gregory XIII, and Clement VIII.
For an introduction, one should consult the article “Talmud,” JE, 1906, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14213-talmud.
Pax vobiscum
(“Peace to you, plural”
~ ΝΔ
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