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Throughout the medieval period, most Latin Christians turned to Jerome for information about Jewish biblical exegesis rather than to any Jewish scholars who lived in their midst. Jews and Christians tended to live in separate communities, with distinct scholarly networks.Footnote 1 Widely respected for his knowledge of Hebrew as well as of Greek, most citations of Jewish exegesis prior to the twelfth century go back to Jerome. Occasionally there are independent references to Jewish post-biblical literature in the early Middle Ages. This is the case with the Quaestiones hebraicae in librum Samuelis, composed in the early ninth century by a convert from Judaism who incorporated previously unknown rabbinic material (and is likely to have used his Hebrew learning to correct the Bible of Theodulf).Footnote 2 This work would be much quoted by Raban Maur and subsequently by the compiler of the Glossa ordinaria on the books identified in the Vulgate as 1–2 Regum (=1–2 Samuel). Only in the twelfth century, however, does a distinct movement develop among some Christian scholars in northern France to go beyond the very limited details about Jewish exegesis offered by Jerome and these Quaestiones (which often circulated under Jerome's name), even in the face of manifest anti-Jewish sentiment in wider Christian society. Beryl Smalley and a number of subsequent researchers have observed the presence of a Christian hebraist movement in writings of Hugh and Andrew of St Victor, Peter Comestor and Herbert of Bosham, that would reach a peak in the works of Nicolas of Lyre in the fourteenth century.Footnote 3 This movement raises a question about the extent to which Christian scholars made personal contact with their Jewish colleagues in the twelfth century.
Perhaps the most well-known representation of such an exchange is that offered by Peter Abelard in his Collationes, a work once assigned to the final years of his life, but now thought more likely to have been written in the early 1130s.Footnote 4 Abelard presents the scholarly Jew in a remarkably sympathetic fashion, inventing a speech in which the Jew laments the unjust treatment faced by his fellow religionists. The question remains as to whether he is offering any more than a literary invention.Footnote 5 Thomas Glick has recently argued that interaction between Jewish and Christian scholars may have been much more positive than polemical literature (of which there is no lack) may indicate.Footnote 6 More detailed study is needed to explore the question.
The driving characteristic of Jewish exegesis in the twelfth century is its emphasis on the literal understanding of the biblical text, designated in Hebrew as the ‘simple’ explanation (P eshat), carried over in Latin Christian exegesis as the sensus litteralis. This more historicising approach to exegesis was propagated in Jewish communities in northern France, in particular in Troyes in Champagne, by Rabbi Shlomo Izkhaki, more commonly known as Rashi (1040–1105). It was brought to perfection by his student R. Yossef Qara (c. 1050–1130), his grandson Rashbam (R. Shemual ben Meir, c. 1080–1160) and Rashbam's pupil, R. Yossef Bekhor Shor.Footnote 7 During the twelfth century some Christian authors cite Jewish exegesis in the name of anonymous Hebrei. Yet were these actual Jews? Both Herman Hailperin and Beryl Smalley suggested that Hugh of St Victor's frequent allusions to Hebrew interpretations in Scripture could have been inspired by contact with the school of Rashi, arguments that have been supported by Rebecca Moore in her analysis of Hugh's authentic exegetical work. She also argues that works falsely attributed to Hugh are more strongly anti-Jewish and betray none of this Jewish influence.Footnote 8 In his Adnotationes elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, Hugh paraphrases Jerome's introduction to the Pentateuch in which Jerome urges his reader ‘to ask Jews’ about the superiority of his own translation from the Hebrew over that of the Septuagint, and claims that just as Greek copies were more true than Latin manuscripts, so Hebrew exemplars were more reliable than the Greek.Footnote 9 Yet the extent to which Hugh engaged in dialogue with actual Jews is not known for certain.
According to Gilbert Dahan, most knowledge of Jewish exegesis by Christian scholars in the twelfth century came not from reading Hebrew texts, but from oral interaction with pious Jews who studied the Bible, heard sermons and knew the new exegesis from Rashi's school, but who were not ‘professional’ exegetes or leaders of the community.Footnote 10 Yet Stephen Harding, abbot of Cîteaux (1109–34), reports in a note added to the Bible that he commissioned to be copied for the abbey (now Bibliothèque municipale, Dijon, mss 12–15), that he had been so disturbed by variations in the biblical text translated by Jerome from the Hebrew, that he consulted ‘certain Jews skilled in their own Scripture’, using the lingua romana to discuss all the parts and verses contained in his copy of the Bible where had found variations. He was particularly interested in getting them to verify those sections of the Bible that Jerome had translated from the Syriac (‘de Chaldaico’) rather than the Hebrew. He discovered that the Jews did not have any of the problematic passages that he had encountered, and subsequently removed them from his text, ‘particularly in the books of Kings, where most of the error was found’.Footnote 11 In the mid-twelfth century, another Cistercian, Nicholas Maniacoria, similarly echoed the practice of Theodulf in seeking Jewish help to correct the Latin text of the Psalter.Footnote 12
A strong defence of the need for Christians to become familiar with Hebrew is given by Odo, author of the Ysagoge in theologiam, a work that he sent to Gilbert Foliot, then abbot of St Peter's Gloucester, sometime between the years 1139 and 1148.Footnote 13 Odo, who also had a strong interest in the writings of Macrobius and may also be author of commentaries traditionally attributed to Bernard Sylvestris, argued that knowledge of Hebrew was essential to counter Jews in argument. He quotes Scripture extensively in Hebrew, although sometimes does so by translating back from the Latin Vulgate.Footnote 14 While this author's connections with Abelard may not be as explicit as Landgraf imagined, his arguments in favour of learning Hebrew attests to the vitality of the Hebraist movement in the mid-twelfth century. Odo shares this enthusiasm with Andrew of St Victor (d. 1175), who moved from St Victor to Wigmore (not far distant from St Peter's Gloucester) in around 1147. In his commentary on the books of Kings, completed before that date, Andrew alludes to other Jewish interpretations, presumably gained through discussion with other Jews.Footnote 15 The practice of Latin scholars annotating Hebrew Psalters would become increasingly widespread in England by the thirteenth century.Footnote 16
A rare example of a surviving Jewish response to a Christian asking a question of a rabbi, is that of Rabbenu Tam (R. Yaakov ben Meir, 1100–71), a brother of Rashbam and grandson of Rashi. Rabbenu Tam answered a question about Enoch put to him by Henry of Blois, count of Champagne (1152–81), in a responsa that only survives in Hebrew.Footnote 17 Henry of Blois put questions on biblical matters to a wide range of scholars, including John of Salisbury, Peter of Celle and Herbert of Bosham – who answered a question from the count about whether the Salome mentioned in the Gospel of Mark was a man (as suggested by Peter Lombard) or a woman.Footnote 18 Herbert drew extensively on the commentaries of Rashi when editing and emending Lombard's commentaries, frequently referring to ‘litterator’, ‘litteratores hebreorum’ and sometimes ‘litterator meus’.Footnote 19 The fact that Henry, count of Champagne, corresponded with both Rabbenu Tam and Herbert of Bosham, raises the possibility that Herbert could have acquired his knowledge of Rashi through Rabbenu Tam and the court at Troyes. Later Rashi is quoted in the works of other hebraists who had read his works first hand.Footnote 20
Two celebrated personalities who participated in this movement of Christians interested in contemporary Jewish interpretation of the Bible were Peter Abelard (1079–1142) and Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete from 1129 until her death in 1164. Although most studies of Abelard's interest in Judaism, have focused on his relatively sympathetic presentation of a rationally minded Jew in his Collationes or Dialogue of a philosopher with a Jew and a Christian, attention should also be given to what he has to say about Heloise's interest in biblical languages. In his Letter 9, Abelard singles out her knowledge of Hebrew, effectively presenting her as like Jerome's disciple, Paula, in her enthusiasm for the study of Scripture. Abelard was particularly interested in Jerome's attention to ‘the Hebrew truth’. He urges the nuns of the Paraclete to learn from Heloise's competence in these same languages so that they can settle debates about the meaning of Scripture:
You have a mother skilled in these three languages, [so] you should go on to perfection in these studies, so that, whatever dispute arises about the different translations, you may bring the examination to a conclusion. … Nor do you need a long journey or great expense to learn these languages as the blessed Jerome did, since in your abbess, as I have said, you have a mother equal to this study.Footnote 21
Further in the letter, he repeats this claim about Heloise:
You have authority (magisterium) in a mother which can suffice for all purposes; that is, as much as an example of the virtues as for instruction in letters, not only in Latin but even in Hebrew and Greek; she alone in this age seems to have achieved that skill in three languages, which is proclaimed by everyone as a grace uniquely in blessed Jerome, but is greatly commended by him in the venerable women mentioned above.Footnote 22
That Heloise was familiar with Hebrew is also repeated by the chronicler, William Godell, who provides (c. 1173) an unusually detailed account of Abelard's career, including the information that he founded the Paraclete ex epistolari auctoritate – suggesting that he had direct awareness of Abelard's epistolary writing for the Paraclete, including his Letter 7 (a history of religious women) and Letter 8, introducing his Rule for the Paraclete, perhaps from visiting the abbey himself after Heloise's death in 1164. Godell repeats what Letter 9 says about Heloise's learning in both Latin and Hebrew, although not its claim that she also knew Greek.Footnote 23 Godell's report, including his comment about Heloise's competence in both Latin and Hebrew, was then repeated by subsequent chroniclers, although not with all his detail.Footnote 24 Peter the Venerable himself alludes to Heloise's knowledge of Hebrew when he comments in his letter to her that ‘the name Deborah, as your learning knows, means bee in the Hebrew language’.Footnote 25 Peter's knowledge of the Hebrew meaning of Debborah derived most likely from Jerome's Liber interpretationis hebraicum, but he was aware that Heloise would understand the allusion.Footnote 26
Even if Abelard was exaggerating Heloise's knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, it is not impossible that she had an awareness of these languages beyond the norm. In the eleventh century Sigo, abbot of St Florent, Saumur (1055–70), was reportedly sufficiently skilled in both languages to correct liturgical manuscripts in his abbey. Sigebert of Gembloux (d. 1112) was remembered for his close friendship with Jews in Metz.Footnote 27 Heloise's reputation for linguistic expertise, singled out by Abelard, Peter the Venerable and William Godell, need not be a complete fantasy. Instruction in Greek was certainly taking place at St-Denis by the second half of the twelfth century, while there was a precedent for Christian scholars having friendly interaction with Jews.Footnote 28 Heloise was perceived by her admirers as inheriting the linguistic expertise associated with Jerome. She shared with both Abelard and Hugh of St Victor a fascination for the hebraica veritas.
Heloise's profound interest in many particular dilemmas presented by the Old Testament is also vividly attested in the Problemata Heloissae, a collection of forty-two questions that she addressed to Abelard, each of which includes a response from Abelard. This must have happened sometime in the 1130s. The fact that this work is itself called Problemata, rather than the more normal Quaestiones, itself demonstrates an interest in Greek terminology. Many of these Problemata, however, concern apparent contradictions or difficulties presented by the Hebrew Bible, and seem to have been formulated in response to Abelard's injunction in Letter 9 to attend to the study of Scripture. In her Problemata, Heloise does not identify any particular knowledge of Hebrew. None the less, she interprets many difficult passages in Scripture in a more historical than allegorical way, and is followed in this by Abelard. This is evident in a question (Problema xxxvi) she asks about three questions she sees as implicit in 1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6) about ‘the faithful priest’ prophesied as Eli's successor, the meaning of ‘will walk before my annointed’ and the nature of the offering his household should make.
Problema Heloissae xxxvi
Rogamus quippe et quaerimus quis fuerit ille vir Dei a Domino missus ad Heli, ut eum corrigeret, et mala domui ejus ventura praediceret? Quid et illud sit quod inter caetera dicitur de sacerdote meliore successuro Heli: Suscitabo, inquit, mihi sacerdotem fidelem, qui juxta cor meum et animam meam faciat, et aedificabo ei domum fidelem, et ambulabit coram Christo meo cunctis diebus. Futurum est autem ut quicunque remanserit in domo, veniat ut oretur pro ea, et offerat nummum argenteum, et tortam panis, dicatque: Dimitte me, obsecro, ad unam partem sacerdotalem, ut comedam buccellam panis [1 Sam. ii.35–6]. Scimus quidem Samuelem, qui Heli supervixit, fidelissimum exstitisse Domino. Sed quod levita potius quam sacerdos exstiterit, communis opinio est, nec domum ejus fidelem exstitisse, cujus filii reprobati sunt. Quod etiam dicitur, Ambulabit coram Christo meo, utrum de ipso sacerdote, an de domo ejus accipiendum sit, et quis ille Christus sit quaerimus. Denique quod supponitur de oblatione nummi argentei et tortae panis, tanquam oblatione nova, quam lex non habuit, et caeteris quae adduntur, exponi postulamus.Footnote 29
(We beg to ask who was that man of God sent by the Lord to Eli so that he should correct him and preach of the evils which would befall his house? And what is it that said among other things of the priest who was a better successor to Eli: And I will raise me up a faithful priest that shall act according to my heart and soul, and I shall build him a sure house; and he shall walk before my anointed forever. And it shall happen that everyone left in the house shall come and pray for these things and he shall offer a silver coin and a loaf of bread, and shall say: Entrust to me, I pray, a priestly task, that I may eat a morsel of bread [1 Sam. ii.35–6]. Indeed we know that Samuel, who survived Eli, was most faithful to the Lord. But the common opinion is that he was a Levite rather than a priest, nor did his family remain faithful, his sons being reproved. We also ask whether the statement: shall walk before my anointed is to be interpreted with regard to the priest himself or to his family, and we ask who is this anointed? Finally we beg to have explained what is added about the offering of a silver coin and a morsel of bread, and of other things, as if this was a new offering which the Law did not have.)
Solutio Abaelardi
Vir ille Dei creditur angelus fuisse apparens in humana specie. Sacerdos successurus Heli, non tam Samuel, qui levita fuerit, nec fidelem, sed reprobam domum habuit, quam quicunque alius vir sanctus, qui in ordine sacerdotii Heli successerit, intelligendus esse videtur, qualis fortassis Abinadab fuit, in cujus domum arca Domini Cariathiarim reducta est a Philisthaeis, vel Eleazarus filius ejus sanctificatus ibi ad custodiendam arcam [1 Regum vii.1], vel denique ipse Achimelec, quem cum aliis sacerdotibus Saul interfecit in Nobe civitate sacerdotum [1 Regum xxii.9–19]. Quod vero dictum est: Ambulabit coram christo meo, non de sacerdote, sed de domo ejus accipe sub ipso ministrante.Footnote 30 Denique quod additur, Futurum est enim, etc., ita hebraeum quemdam audivi exponentem: ‘Nummus argenteus, siclus argenteus est, quo unusquisque redimebat se a sacerdote. Torta panis, quicar, id est quarta panis pars, quae pauperum oblatio erat. Pars sacerdotii armus dexter et pectusculum [Numbers xviii.18] id est superior pectoris pars, maxillae, ventriculus et cauda (quae tamen non semper eadem erat), quia secundum diversos sacrificiorum ritus, ut in Levitico legitur, pars sacerdoti dabatur [Leviticus x.12]. Nuntiatur itaque Heli quod domus ejus ad tantam ventura sit paupertatem, ut qui modo redemptionum et oblationum susceptores erant, quibus etiam propter ipsum Heli pars sacerdotalis dabatur, ab aliis se redimendos sacerdotibus, alimoniam petant, orantes, ut eis quantulacunque sacerdotii particula, et buccella panis, quae torta superius appellata est, dimittatur.Footnote 31
(That man of God is believed to have been an angel appearing in human form. The priest who would succeed Eli was not Samuel, a Levite, nor a faithful person, but rather seems to be understood as any other holy man succeeding to Eli in the order of priesthood, who had a wicked household, such as perhaps Abinadab, in whose house the ark of the Lord was taken by Kiriath-Jearim from the Philistines [1 Sam. vii.1], or Eleazer his son, sanctified there to keep the ark, or finally Achimelech, whom Saul killed with other priests in Nob, the city of priests [1 Sam. xxii.9–19]. What indeed was said, will walk before my anointed, accept as not about the priest but about his household serving under him. Finally, what is added, And it shall happen etc: I have heard a certain Hebrew expounding thus: ‘The silver coin is a silver shekel, by which each person used to redeem himself from the priest; the loaf of bread, quicar, is the fourth part of bread, which was an offering of the poor; the share of the priest is the right shoulder and the breast [Numbers xviii.18], that is the higher part of the breast, the stomach and the tail of the jaw (which however was not always the same), because according to different rites of sacrifice, as is read in Leviticus, a part will be given to the priest (Levit. x.12). Therefore it was announced to Eli that his household would come to such great poverty, that those who became receivers of redemptions and sacrifices, to whom (because of that Heli) a priestly share was also given, would seek nourishment from other priests, to redeem themselves, begging that each priestly particle and the morsel which above was called a loaf (torta) be entrusted to them.)
Heloise here explores a question not raised in the Quaestiones hebraicae in Samuelem or subsequent commentaries on what the Vulgate calls 1–2 Regum, namely the identity of the priest prophesied to Eli in 1 Sam. ii.36. The first two chapters of this book tell how Hannah conceived a child, Samuel, who would move from being a servant of the priest Eli to being himself called by God to serve in the fashion of a priest. Because Hannah's prayer would be used by Luke as a model of the prophetic prayer uttered by Mary about the humble being raised (the Magnificat), it was inevitable that the biblical prophecy made to Eli about a priest who would redeem Israel would be construed by Christians in typological fashion as about Christ. Augustine set a pattern for such a reading of this passage as a mystical allusion to Christ in his De civitate dei, establishing a precedent for subsequent commentators.Footnote 32 Yet Heloise disregards this possibility, observing that it was ‘common opinion’ that Samuel was a Levite, not a priest like Eli. She alludes to comments of Jerome in his Adversus Jovinianum that Samuel, from the tribe of Ephraim, was a Levite, and thus of humbler background than Eli, from the priestly caste.Footnote 33 She also wants to know whether ‘ambulabit coram Christo meo’ refers to the priest being prophesied or the household (problematic as Samuel's descendants were reproved for their bad behaviour), and what was understood by these new offerings that had to be made. Was this a new addition to the Law? Isidore has nothing to say about the silver coin to be offered to God, except to explain it in a spiritual sense as ‘confession of the mouth’.Footnote 34 Bede mentions the silver coin without explanation, while a commentary attributed to Gregory the Great (possibly from the early twelfth century) continues this allegorical interpretation of the coin as ‘silver’ speech, focusing on the issue of interior penitence and interpreting the phrase ‘cum Christo meo’ as about Christ.Footnote 35 The Quaestiones hebraicae in librum Samuelis offers a ‘historical’ reading of some elements in this passage, but simply has nothing to say about the identity of the priest or about the silver coin required of the faithful.Footnote 36
Abelard answers her question in a way that suggests that he may already know about it. He identifies the priest being referred to initially as an angel in the form of a man, but then explains that the priest could refer to one of a number of individuals, namely Abinadab, Eleazer or Achimelech. He does not raise the possibility that it is an allusion to Christ. He then reports the very specific teaching of a Jew, presumably because he found nothing in the Fathers to help him. This Jew had explained not just that the silver coin is a silver shekel, but also gave the otherwise unknown term ‘quicar’ for the ‘torta panis’, the loaf of bread, and supplies detail about the share that goes to the priest. No Christian commentator on this passage had ever before explained the literal sense of the silver coin. Abelard here seems to draw on an interpretation established by Rashi; there are strong reasons to believe that he indeed got his interpretation from a Jew who was probably citing Rashi.Footnote 37
Before comparing Abelard's citation to Jewish exegesis of the time, a summary of the Jewish exegesis on the other parts of this biblical phrase is in order. The Jews too were puzzled by the figures of the ‘man of God’ and the priest destined to replace Heli. In contrast to Abelard, Rashi and R. Yossef Qara identified the ‘man of God’ as no angel but Elkana, Hanna's husband and Samuel's father. They were compelled to this interpretation by tradition: several rabbinic texts count Elkana as one of the prophets citing this biblical phrase (‘man of God’).Footnote 38 The Jews faced the same problem as Heloise about the identity of the just priest who was to replace Eli. The only biblical figure who is known to have succeeded Eli chronologically was Samuel, and he was not a priest. Both Christian and Jewish commentators could have chosen here an allegorical interpretation, especially when this priest is destined to walk before God's Messiah (Eng. ‘my anointed’; Lat. ‘Christo meo’; Heb. ‘Meshichi’). Indeed this path was chosen in the past. But here Abelard imitates the method of an unidentified Jewish exegete in looking through the Bible to seek a ‘real’ priest that was just, that served the Temple soon after Heli and that had successors. Abelard suggests either Abinadab or Eleazer his son or Achimelech, while the Jews pick up Zadok. The reason for this is that they understand ‘my anointed’ to be King Salomon whom Zadok anointed with oil to be king (1 Kings i.34–40). This Jewish tradition was presented to Christian scholars through the work of the Jewish convert who composed the Quaestiones hebraicae in librum Samuelis in the ninth century. Although Abelard was familiar with this work, he knew it only through Raban Maur's commentary.Footnote 39
Abelard seems here to be turning the comments of Jewish exegesis to his own ends. Rashi had commented on this verse: ‘Evyatar … was one of the sons of the sons of Heli and he knew that he would not serve [as priest] in the days of Salomon, because it was said to Heli: and he shall walk before my anointed’. This Jewish interpretation, which already existed in the ninth century, rises directly from following the sensus litteralis of the Bible, and seems to reflect a deliberate exegetical strategy. By assigning a historical figure to an anonymous Christus/Mashiach, this Jewish interpretation rebukes any Christological allegory. Abelard may also be influenced here by the comment in 1 Sam. xxiv.7–11 about Saul as ‘the anointed of the Lord’, or ‘Christus domini’ in Jerome's translation – quite different from Jewish exegetical tradition. He evokes this historical meaning of ‘Christus’ as ‘the anointed’ with reference to Saul in his Planctus of David over Saul and Jonathan:
(Woe, woe to you, earth sodden with royal blood! Why, my Jonathan, has an impious hand struck you down? Where the anointed of the Lord and the most distinguished one of Israel, were lost in a wretched death with their own people.)
In these verses, Abelard expands on the lament of David given in 2 Sam. i.19–27 by invoking the notion of Saul as himself the anointed one of the Lord. Rather than present Saul and Jonathan as archetypes of Christ, Abelard evokes the notion of Christus domini as relevant to the king of Israel, in this case Saul. Heloise's question about the identity of the priest mentioned in 1 Sam. ii. 36 may have been triggered by similar interest in the meaning of the word Christus.
In his notes on the books of Kings, Hugh of St Victor is aware that the Jews refer to its first book as the book of Samuel, but he makes no comment at all on the passage that Heloise had brought to Abelard's attention.Footnote 41 Andrew of St Victor comments more fully on this passage in his commentary, written sometime before 1147. He silently draws on both Bede and Isidore to provide an interpretation that steers away from the allegorical reading offered by Augustine. The faithful priest being referred to, he suggests, is Zadok, and ‘my anointed’ is Solomon. In this he is probably relying on the Quaestiones hebraicae in librum Samuelis, as Peter Comestor and Stephen Langton did too.Footnote 42 He comments that ‘the Jews think that tortas do not differ in shape but in quantity from those breads which they call brainellos.Footnote 43 Andrew offers no interpretation at all of the silver coin.
Abelard, Heloise and Andrew of St Victor share a common interest in searching out the literal, rather than allegorical meaning of this passage in the first book of Samuel. Jews and Christians were dealing with the same problems and seeking answers to them with the same tools, while differing on theological questions. Although it was established that biblical exegesis served also in the Jewish-Christian debate and controversyFootnote 44, here the sensus litteralis neutralised the text of a theological meta-meaning and paved the way to a common ground and for exchange of ideas. Coming back to Abelard's explicit citation of a Jewish interpretation, let us examine one of these cases.
It is quite clear that Abelard had indeed spoken to a Jew and that he cites a commentary that can only come from the Hebrew. He explains the ‘piece of bread’ (‘bucella panis’ or ‘torta panis’) as ‘quicar, id est quarta panis pars, quae pauperum oblatio erat’. Firstly, the otherwise unknown Latin word ‘quicar’ is, of course, the Hebrew Qiqar (
), a loaf (of bread) that appears in the original Hebrew of the biblical phrase in 1 Sam. ii.36. Second, the interpretation of the ‘silver coin’ (Lat. ‘nummum argenteum’; Heb. ‘Agorrat Kessef’) as a shekel (‘siculus’) can derive only from the Hebrew, and actually reflects a Jewish tradition. Rashi's exegesis on this is: ‘le-Agorat Kessef [=silver coin]: of the weight of twenty Gerra (Exodus xxx)’.Footnote 45 Thus he refers the reader to Exodus xxx.14: ‘This they shall give, every one that passes among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: a shekel [is] twenty gerahs [Lat. ‘Obolos’; Heb. ‘Gera’], an half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord.' On this verse Rashi says: ‘Gera: like Maeh (a small coin), as in Samuel: and he shall offer a silver coin’. This needs explanation: Obolos in Hebrew is Gera, while nummum is Agora. Because of the vocal resemblance in Hebrew (gora, gera) it was concluded that the otherwise unknown word Agora in Samuel is the same as the known one Gera from Exodus, just with an A (Alef) added. Thus Gera (nummum) of Samuel (according to Exodus) is one twentieth (1/20) of a shekel (=siclus). Abelard could have known about a nummum as a twentieth of a shekel from Jerome's commentary on Ezekiel (a text that he had himself commented upon c. 1113–15).Footnote 46 But Abelard reproduces here not Jerome, but his Jewish source – whom he may not have fully understood, and from whom he may just have grasped the word Shekel or siclus. It is quite possible that the connection he draws between the silver coin (‘nummum argenteum’) and shekhel (‘siclus’) came through the Hebrew (Agora – Gera), like the otherwise unknown quicar.
This interpretation is not originally Rashi's, but rather originated in the work of a tenth-century Jewish linguist from Spain, Menachem ben Saruq, whose work was well known to Rashi. This interpretation, with explicit reference to Menachem ben Saruq, appears in the commentary attributed to Rashi's pupil and friend, R. Yosef Qara. In his commentary R. Yosef debates several options raised by the tenth-century Jewish linguists, but finally follows an Aramaic root and interprets Agora as salary, payment.Footnote 47 Thus it may be concluded that this exegesis was well known in Rashi's school in particular and among Jews in general.
Finally, another element can perhaps be traced to Rashi's school: the share of the priest described in the citation from the Jew. Although Abelard quotes Numbers xviii.18 (‘pectusculum et armus dexter’), where it is written there that the priest should receive the right thigh and the breast, he also recalls Exodus xxix.27–8 (‘sanctificabis et pectusculum consecratum et armum quem de ariete separasti’) where this offering is also mentioned. The Jew may have been alluding to this verse, for two reasons. First, in Ex. xxix.23 the loaf of bread (‘qiqar lechem’) is mentioned – which probably evoked this reference. Second, Rashi on Ex. xxix. 23 explains that this is the only case of the bread being sacrificed, as it usually goes to the priest with the breast and the thigh.Footnote 48
Abelard quoted the comments of a Jew in response to a particularly probing question that Heloise put to him about the priest prophesied as Eli's successor and the meaning of ‘ambulabit coram christo meo’ (‘will walk before my anointed’), mentioned in 1 Samuel ii.35–6 (=1 Regum ii.35–6 in the Latin Vulgate). Their closeness to the commentaries of Rashi, and the dependence of Abelard's remarks on Hebrew words, supports the notion that Abelard had indeed discussed the matter with a disciple of Rashi. Was it one of Rashi's grandchildren, such as Rashbam, or Rabbenu Tam – who once responded to a question put to him by Henry of Blois, count of Champagne? Rashi's descendants ensured that Troyes would remain an important centre of Jewish scholarship in the twelfth century. The exact identity of this Jew still needs to be determined. The possibility arises that Abelard and Heloise may both have got to know one of the grandsons of Rashi, possibly in Troyes itself. Abelard's sympathetic portrayal of a Jew in his Collationes might well reflect actual familiarity with such a figure. The exchange with a Jew mentioned in the Problemata might also illuminate why Abelard used the example of Jewish zeal for education, educating daughters as well as sons, to criticise Christian negligence of Scripture.Footnote 49
The question that Heloise asked him about the identity of ‘my anointed’ in 1 Samuel reflects a remarkably attentive reading of the scriptural text in question. While her competence in Hebrew is impossible to verify with certainty, Heloise's interest in this book of the Bible could have been prompted by her having heard about Stephen Harding's comment in the Bible of Cîteaux that errors of translation were particularly rife in the books of Kings. She shared the desire of Hugh of St Victor, Stephen Harding and Nicholas Maniacoria to recover ‘the Hebrew truth’. This enthusiasm went hand in hand with a desire for authenticity in religious life. We know that, as abbess, she received Bernard of Clairvaux at the Paraclete, ‘for a holy visitation’ and greeted him respectfully – even if Abelard would question the legitimacy of certain Cistercian reforms.Footnote 50 Chrysogonus Waddell has already observed the extent to which the Paraclete liturgy and monastic observances were indebted to early Cistercian practice, prior to the reforms of 1147.Footnote 51 Like the early Cistercians, both Heloise and Abelard were preoccupied by the need to achieve authenticity in monastic life. As with Stephen Harding, this involved resolving apparent contradictions in the text of Scripture by consulting learned Jews and respecting their comments. The marginalisation of Jews in Christian society did not stop certain scholars from seeking to learn what Jewish exegetes had to say about the Bible. That Abelard turned not to Jerome, but to the interpretation of a disciple of Rashi, suggests that he could not find any Christian authority to answer Heloise's very precise, but probing questions about the identity of ‘my anointed’ in 1 Samuel ii.35–6. It was through this kind of scholarly encounter that Rashi exerted a not inconsiderable influence on the development of Christian biblical exegesis in the twelfth century.
” Mikra‘ot gedolot ‘haKeter‘, ii. 18–19.
” “
Cited from the rabbinic edition: Mikra‘ot gedolot, Schneidmesser and Herschenhorn, Lublin 1897–9, 1 Samuel, 2: 36. Poznanski has demonstrated that this is not R. Yossef Qara's original exegesis, but that it may be assumed that it is in fact from northern France sometime in the twelfth century: Kommentar zu Ezechiel und den XII Kleinen Propheten von Eliezer aus Beaugency, ed. S. Poznanski, Warsaw 1913, p. xxvi. The only manuscript of R. Yossef Qara chooses the same interpretation and reads ‘LeAgorat, he will come to beg to be hired for money (
)’: Mikra‘ot gedolot ‘haKeter, ii. 20; 
: Mikra‘ot Gedolot ‘HaKeter, Exodus II (2007), Ex. xxix. 23.
