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Jewish Converts in the Early Church and Latin Christian Exegetes of Isaiah, c. 400–1150

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2008

ELISABETH MÉGIER
ELISABETH MÉGIER
Affiliation:
289 Rue St Jacques, F-75005 Paris, France; e-mail: emgier@wanadoo.fr
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Abstract

This article examines the role, in patristic and medieval commentaries on Isaiah in the west up until 1150, of the theme of the ‘remnant’ (Isaiah i.9; x.22), which is related to Jewish Christians by St Paul. Assumed to signify the small number of Jewish converts in Apostolic times, it could also be used on the one hand to minimise the Jewish contribution to the early Church (St Jerome and Rupert of Deutz) and on the other hand to emphasise it (Haimo of Auxerre, Bruno of Segni and Herveus of Bourg-Dieu). Some authors, however, simply ignore the question (Arnold of Bonneval and Rainald of St Eloi).

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008
CCCM

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum series latina

CLCLT

Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts

When studying patristic and medieval commentaries on Isaiah in the west, from St Jerome to the middle of the twelfth century, one is struck by a frequently recurring theme: that of the small number of Jewish converts at the time of the Apostles. Does this demonstrate some reluctance to acknowledge the Jewish contribution to Christianity? Not, certainly, insofar as the spiritual legacy of the Old Testament is concerned, but perhaps on the historical level, concerning the actual presence of previously Jewish individuals in the early Church, or their role, as historical persons, in the transmission of the Old Testament heritage. How, in other words, do the authors of these commentaries, who were Christians ex gentibus, ‘from the Gentiles’, deal with the fact that, like Christ himself, all the first Christians were Jews and had come to Christianity from Judaism?

The reason why commentators on Isaiah can tell us something about this subject is that quotations from Isaiah play a central role in St Paul's argument in Romans ix and xi, where he defends the position of Jews and Judaism in face of a developing majority of Gentile Christians. In Isaiah x. 22 Paul finds the ‘remnant’ of Israel that will be saved, in i.9 the ‘seed’ for the sake of which God has spared His people: he identifies both of these with himself and his Jewish followers. Commentators on Isaiah are, of course, aware of the use made of these texts, and understand them in a similar way, but as they are interpreting Isaiah and not St Paul, they are less accountable for the concerns of the Apostle, a circumstance which can help to reveal their own priorities, priorities which might be less clear in a commentary on Romans.

St Jerome

The first surprise is that the interpretation of the oldest and most venerable of the authors, St Jerome himself, deviates most from that of St Paul. For Jerome, as for St Paul, the ‘remnant’ (‘reliquiae’: Isaiah x.22), as well as the ‘seed’ (‘semen’: Isaiah i.9) means those Jews who have believed in Christ, the Apostles and their first followers, the ‘apostolici viri’,Footnote 1 but whereas St Paul stresses their being saved, Jerome insists on their being only a few. It is Jerome who introduces the theme, which does not appear in St Paul, of the paucity of Jewish converts.Footnote 2 Jerome even supports his claim with historical evidence from Josephus Flavius: ‘And indeed’, he writes, ‘if we read Josephus and what a great multitude of people there was in Jerusalem and in Judea when the Lord suffered His Passion, we understand that hardly a few from among the Jews have been saved, in the persons of the apostles and the apostolic men.’Footnote 3 With varying emphasis, the same statement is reiterated several times;Footnote 4 in particular, Jerome uses the image of the few halms or grapes and of the two or three, four or five olives left after the harvest in Isaiah xvii.4–6 to press his point: ‘The olive tree of the Jewish nation, which under Moses had six hundred thousand armed men and under David, according to Joab, a countless number of people, could only offer some rare fruits to the Lord and Saviour.’Footnote 5 Isaiah's three, four and five olives are, in addition, identified with the twelve Apostles, and the two with Paul and Barnabas: the first group of Jewish Christians was, it seems, limited to these fourteen persons, and through them only some ‘poor remainders of the harvest’ were saved.Footnote 6 Jerome apparently sees no contradiction between this and the statement in Acts of the three thousand and the five thousand, or even the many thousand Jewish believers,Footnote 7 which he also introduces quite often, although usually without insisting upon it.Footnote 8 As will be seen in some of the following quotations, these ‘thousands’ serve primarily as a reminder of the report in Acts, and tend to be qualified by a reference to a more general conversion.Footnote 9 Moreover, the theme of the saved or believing Jews, whether few or many, is more often than not subordinated to more dominant themes, especially the erroneous interpretation of the Bible by Jews and ‘Judaizers’, that is Christians influenced by the Jews or Jewish Christians.

Jerome's main concern in explaining Isaiah x.22 as well as i.9 is to prove that the words of the prophet refer to the time of Christ, in other words that the Christian and not the Jewish interpretation of these verses is correct. It is for the sake of the reference, not because he is interested in the Apostle's argument about the non-rejection of the Jews and their presence in the Christian community, that Jerome quotes St Paul who quotes Isaiah: a verse to which St Paul refers when discussing problems of his own time must of course be applicable to this very time and to none other. So Jerome starts his explanation of Isaiah i.9 by quoting Romans xi.1–2 and xi.5 and then declares:

This shows that the prophet's preceding menaces against Jerusalem and Judah do not refer to the time of the Babylonian captivity, but to the last captivity by the Romans, when the remnant of the people of the Jews was saved in the Apostles, and on one day three thousand believed, and on another five thousand, and the Gospel was spread out in the whole world.Footnote 10

Commenting on Isaiah x.20–3 Jerome first gives an account of Jewish history to explain verse 20, and then states that with the ‘remnant’ of verse 22 the prophet passes on to Christian times: this, Jerome assures us, was the understanding of the Apostle Paul. Thus, after having quoted Romans ix.27–8, with Paul's references to Isaiah x.22 and i.9, Jerome affirms: ‘Indeed, where the authority of such a great man leads the way, every other interpretation has to be dropped.’Footnote 11 The theme of the small number of converted Jews can provide an additional argument, and this is why Jerome not only introduces it here, but also wants to confirm it through the testimony of Josephus. If it is true that the Jews converted ‘in and by the Apostles’ were but few, then they can be more easily identified with the ‘remnant’: Isaiah must therefore have been referring to the time when these conversions would take place. The interpretation of the ‘reliquiae’ accredited by the authority of the Apostle also enables Jerome to reject a Jewish or ‘Judaizing’ reference which he particularly abhors, and against which he inveighs on numerous occasions, namely the reference to the rebuilding of the earthly Jerusalem at the end of time.Footnote 12

Jerome is more inclined to acknowledge the conversion of the Jews in the diaspora, than the conversion of the Jews of Palestine, as we can see in his commentary on Isaiah xi.11–14Footnote 13 However, his first concern is again to confirm that the prophecy refers to the Apostolic period, in opposition to false, ‘Judaizing’ interpretations. The false reference here, would be the final conversion of the Jews,Footnote 14 which Jerome probably wants to exclude because of its eschatological aspect, i.e. its affinity with the final reconstruction of Jerusalem. To dwell at length on the Jews' conversion at the First Coming thus could be a useful strategy.

In other cases Jerome mentions that the Church began with the Jews, or that the Apostles and their first converts were Jews, in order to make it clear that God's promises are valid for these converted Jews, but not for the others, or that they alone, not the other Jews, are God's people. Jerome's commentary on Isaiah lix.19–21 is characteristic. There he again presents long quotations from Romans (xi.1–2, 5–7, 23), which show that Paul is Jewish, and that Israel is not wholly cast out. He concludes, however, ‘I have followed this at some length, in order to show that whatever promise to Sion and to Jerusalem we read or will pronounce, refers not in general to all Jews but specially to those who have been chosen, in the persons of the apostles or by them.’Footnote 15 Sometimes Jerome underlines the Jewishness of the Apostles and their first followers, the ‘apostolici viri’, in order better to criticise those Jews who have not become Christians.Footnote 16 Another dominant argument that qualifies even more radically what Jerome may have to say about Jewish converts, is that, according to Acts xiii.46, their conversion was a first, not very successful, step before the Apostles turned to the Gentiles.Footnote 17 This verse is one of Jerome's favourite biblical quotations in his commentary on Isaiah.Footnote 18

For their essential mission, namely to spread the Gospel among the nations, the Apostles' Jewish background is not relevant. When commenting on Isaiah vi.11–13 Jerome declares that all Christian Churches were derived from the Apostles. His point is the difference between the success of these believing Jews and the just punishment of the others,Footnote 19 and that it is not as Jews but in opposition to the Jews that the Apostles bring the heritage of the Old Covenant to the Church: ‘they give instruction about the Holy Scriptures, so as not to imitate the malediction of the Jews’; in other words they explain the Bible according to Christian spirituality, not Jewish understanding.Footnote 20 When recommending the acceptance of the Old Testament, Jerome does not deem it necessary to mention the Apostles or any kind of Christian Jews as intermediaries.Footnote 21 Alternatively, he accuses the Jewish ‘remnant’, converted by the Apostles, of remaining attached to the ‘uilitas litterae’. Footnote 22 That the Church was founded in Jerusalem does not mean that the Jewish environment as such was material. Rather, Jerusalem, Sion, the place of the Gospel, is placed in opposition to Sinai, the place of the Law; and in any case the Gospel did not stay in Jerusalem, but went out from there to the whole world.Footnote 23

Jerome is definitively reticent about Jews and Jewishness in the Church. This may well be because he wrote at a time when there was still an important Jewish community capable of attracting pagan converts, and when one of the principal aims of Christian biblical exegesis was to distinguish between Jews and Christians.Footnote 24 Moreover Jerome also had a personal reason to refute the Jewish, or Jewish Christian interpretations of the promises concerning the Holy City, namely, his adherence to Rome. He is struggling against the identification of Rome with Babylon, present in the Jewish and Jewish Christian apocalyptic tradition, and according to which the rebuilding of Jerusalem implies the fall and destruction of Rome, a prospect Jerome did not at all relish.Footnote 25

The second surprise is that, at least until 1150, Jerome's authority did not prevent a consistent group of medieval commentators of Isaiah – in fact most of those who despite their general dependence upon Jerome interpret the prophet in an individual way – from turning to concerns more congruent with those of St Paul. Haimo of Auxerre, Bruno of Segni and Herveus of Bourg-Dieu abandon Jerome's diffidence and emphasise the Jewish contribution to the Church. Haimo and Herveus also composed commentaries on Romans and dealt with the problem of Jewish conversion more directly, a task never undertaken by Jerome. If the theme of the paucity of Jewish converts remains – and this was probably inevitable given the precedent created by Jerome – these authors manage to put it into perspective, or even to interpret it positively. To achieve this, they could in fact rely on another at least as great authority, St Augustine, who in numerous texts insists upon the existence of a large number of believing Jews in the early Church, not so much because this issue was important to him but because it was connected with other themes with which he was concerned.Footnote 26 The first of these was the matter of the repentance of the killers of Christ who were ‘changed’ by the preaching and the miracles of the Apostles,Footnote 27 and, often associated with it, the example set by the first Christian believers who gave up their possessions in order to live in a community under the guidance of the same Apostles.Footnote 28 Another issue is the continuity of divine election, from the patriarchs and prophets to the Jewish believers in the Christian Church.Footnote 29 St Augustine's point is thus not the composition of the early Church and the relative importance of Jewish and Gentile Christians, but the possibility of conversion for Jews in the past, and in the present; it is in this context that he likes to mention the three thousand and the five thousand or, as he often says, the many thousand Jewish believers referred to in Acts. It can be supposed that the medieval commentators were familiar with at least some of these Augustinian texts,Footnote 30 although they do not seem to quote them in their commentaries on Isaiah, nor the similar ones they might have found in Gregory the Great or Bede.Footnote 31 This might have been because they do not want to challenge Jerome's authority,Footnote 32 or because their own concerns were very different. Nevertheless an echo of the Augustinian approach is to be perceived in their expositions.

Haimo of Auxerre

Haimo of Auxerre, who wrote a commentary on Isaiah during the late Carolingian period,Footnote 33 not only fails to emphasise the theme of the paucity of Jewish converts, but implicitly contradicts it. The converted Jews may be pauci,Footnote 34 but they are not ‘vix pauci’ or ‘paucissimi’ as in Jerome, and Haimo, who on other occasions quotes Josephus very readily,Footnote 35 does not quote him at all on this particular matter.Footnote 36 On the contrary, he creates the impression of significant numbers by multiplying the evocations of the three thousand and five thousand Jews converted by the Apostles, who form a sort of leitmotiv in his commentary, and, what is more, by adding to them almost each time the many thousandFootnote 37 whom Jerome, like most of the church Fathers, including St Augustine, understands as an alternative description of the same group of persons.Footnote 38 Haimo applies a strictly historical interpretation to Isaiah xvii.4–6, connecting ‘the remainders of the harvest’ to the inhabitants of Damascus after the Assyrian conquest, and avoiding any allusion to the Jewish Christians or even to the Apostles.Footnote 39 Moreover, he does not hesitate to speak of the multitude of Jews who came to the faith, together with the multitude of Gentiles.Footnote 40 When Jerome uses the term ‘multitudo’ for the Jews, he means the non-converted ones.Footnote 41

More important than this, in referring the ‘remnant’ and the ‘seed’ in Isaiah i.9 and x.22 to the Apostles and their followers, Haimo's principal intent is not to exclude other references considered as erroneous. Only once does he seem to protest against false Jewish interpretations, and only once do the Christian iudaizantes appear in his text,Footnote 42 compared with the nine times in Jerome. On Isaiah i.9 Haimo simply states that the verse is to be understood as referring to ‘the remnant of the Apostles and the other faithful who from the Jews believed after the coming of the Lord’, and then continues with quotations from Acts and St Paul, the purpose of which is not to confirm the reference but to underline the importance of these Jewish believers ‘of whom it is said in the Acts of the Apostles that on one day three thousand believed, on another day five thousand, and then many thousand. Also, the distinguished preacher says the following about this remnant in his epistle to the Romans: “The remnant has been saved according to the election by grace [Romans xi.5]”.’Footnote 43 On x.22 the question of the reference is treated even more briefly, and in his following discussion of the Jewish converts Haimo does his best to counter Jerome's theme of their paucity: by suppressing ‘vix pauci’, and by specifying, instead, who belonged to the ‘reliquiae’, namely, the Apostles, the ‘others from the Jews who believed before the Lord's ascension’, and the three thousand and five thousand who came to believe through the preaching of the Apostle Peter.Footnote 44

So the first Christian community is in itself one of Haimo's major concerns and, as we can see, its Jewishness is for him an important issue. Moreover, this community has a name: Haimo presents it as the ‘primitive Church’, the ‘ecclesia primitiva’, a term Jerome does not use.Footnote 45 In Haimo ‘ecclesia primitiva’ occurs at least twenty times,Footnote 46 and only four times without being designated, explicitly or by the immediate context, as Jewish. In fact ‘ecclesia primitiva’ and ‘credentes ex Iudaeis’ or ‘qui crediderunt ex Iudaeis’, are synonymous for Haimo, and distinguished from the ‘general Church’ (‘generalis ecclesia’). Footnote 47 Haimo sees this first Jewish Christian community as an important object of God's solicitude, and is ready to present it as the specific reference of a prophecy even where Jerome does not. For instance, on Isaiah xl.1 he tells us that God consoles the ‘credentes ex Iudaeis’, adding as a second choice ‘potest et ad gentes referri’,Footnote 48 whereas Jerome, in this case, declares that the consolation is not addressed to the Jews but to the ‘gentes plurimae’ who have become the people of God in their stead.Footnote 49 Haimo also makes his image of the primitive Jewish Church more substantial by citing St Stephen as one of its members, and by emphasising the attachment of this saint and others to the faith of Christ, for which they are willing to die.Footnote 50

Important as such, the primitive Jewish Church is, moreover, presented as the agent of transmission of the Old Testament legacy, as well as of the Gospel. Haimo emphasises the continuity between the Old and the New Covenant: the ‘congregatio sanctorum’ or ‘fidelium’ of the Jews has been reconstructed by the Apostles,Footnote 51 and there is a line of succession from Isaiah to the Apostles, martyrs and teachers of the Church who spread the doctrine of Old and New Testament.Footnote 52 Like Jerome, and even more explicitly, Haimo assures us that the Apostles understand the Old Testament spiritually, but they do so as Jews, not in opposition to a Jewish malediction: ‘From the primitive Church which consisted of the apostles and the other believers from the Jews, the Law of the Old Testament, understood spiritually, and the Word of God, namely the doctrine of the Gospel, proceeded to all nations.’Footnote 53

As is clear from this last quotation, Haimo is, of course, also interested in the conversion of the Gentiles. But whereas Jerome tends to set the mission to the Gentiles against the – largely failed – conversion of the Jews, Haimo emphasises the union of the two. The number of times he evokes the community of former Jews and former Gentiles in the Church is, in fact, striking: almost twice as often as Jerome, and in much more detail. A characteristic text is the commentary on Isaiah xliii.9:

After those who were predestined among the Jews believed in Christ, the gentiles also were assembled. So the nations were assembled, and the tribes, that is, the Jews were gathered. And from the gentiles as from the Jews was made one flock of the Lord, in which they are brought together every day by the unity of faith, in baptism and in the common reception of the flesh and the blood of Christ.Footnote 54

Haimo also likes to introduce converted Jews in cases where Jerome speaks only of the conversion of the Gentiles.Footnote 55 He also observes that the partial non-belief of the Jews has its parallel in the similar non-belief of the Gentiles, which of course is a way of placing the former in context: ‘The people of Israel’, he writes, ‘are divided into two parts, the believers and the non believers. In the same way, also the gentiles.’Footnote 56 Parallels between Jews and Gentiles are throughout a favourite pattern of discourse with Haimo. On Isaiah lxi.4 where Jerome writes ‘who (namely Sion) fell in the synagogues, may rise in the churches’,Footnote 57 Haimo has ‘what fell in the synagogues by unbelief, [the Apostles] will rebuild in those who believed among the Jews, and what fell from the beginning of the world in the gentiles by idolatry, they will rebuild and raise by the cult of the allmighty God’.Footnote 58 The fact that not all the Jews have been converted does not mean any particular exclusions, and Haimo is ready to envisage the conversion not only of tax collectors, but also of scribes and pharisees and even of priests,Footnote 59 and the Jews are not only called upon to repent of their misdeeds but are actually reported as doing so.Footnote 60

There is one occasion where Haimo seems to infer, even more directly than Jerome, the scant importance of former Jews in the Church. Interpreting Isaiah lxvi.21 Jerome says that the priests and Levites mentioned by Isaiah must mean those who serve God spiritually, and are spiritually circumcised, so they cannot be the Apostles and apostolic men who were princes of the Church from among the Jewish people, but must be Gentiles who have become priests.Footnote 61 As far as Haimo is concerned, Isaiah's ‘sacerdotes’ may be former Gentiles, and the prophet may be predicting the rejection of the Jewish priesthood, because, he adds, in the present (‘modo’) almost no Jewish priest or minister is to be found in the Church.Footnote 62 None the less even in this case he does not want to downplay the Jewish presence. In fact this interpretation is Haimo's second choice: in opposition to Jerome he had started by stating that the text can be understood in a double way, and can mean former Jews as well as former Gentiles;Footnote 63 as an example of a ‘sacerdos ex Iudaeis credentibus’, he mentions St Paul himself, and he concludes by establishing a parallel (one more) between St Paul, a Jewish priest, and St Hilary, a Gentile priest.Footnote 64 The lack of priests of Jewish origin in the contemporary Christian Church is used as a welcome argument in favour of the abolition of the Jewish priesthood, but the pertinence of the argument is based on the principle of allegory: there is no historical connection between the two. And if the present lack of priests of Jewish origin is more important in its spiritual meaning than in its historical reality, it can be placed in historical context by drawing attention to the effective existence of such priests in the past. We can even assume that the past, the time of the Apostles, is more decisive for the identity of the Church than the present, ‘modern’ time.

So from Jerome to Haimo there is an evident shift of emphasis from difference to resemblance and from reserve to solidarity between Jewish and Gentile Christians – and to a certain extent between Christians and Jews in general, the latter being seen as virtual converts rather than as rivals.Footnote 65 Haimo is very much interested in the final general conversion of the Jews,Footnote 66 a theme which Jerome carefully avoids. Haimo's remark about the newly-converted Jews resisting AntiChrist better than the mass of Gentile Christians may even seem to anticipate ideas which are to be found, much later, in the writings of Joachim of Fiore and his followers.Footnote 67 In the Carolingian period the Christian reference of Isaiah is no longer a problem, and the Jewish heritage, valorised by St Augustine, could be a welcome counterweight to the heritage of imperial Rome which was felt to be ambivalent.Footnote 68 In fact Haimo's motivation, like his interpretation, is not without similarities to that of St Augustine who also needed to relativise the Roman empire. In both respects affinity rather than dependence is the better explanation.

Bruno of Segni

The same could be true, mutatis mutandis, for the authors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries who follow Haimo, namely Bruno of Segni and Herveus of Bourg-Dieu. At the time of the Gregorian reform and afterwards, advancing the image of a first Christian community originating from among the Jews could sustain resistance to the importance of Rome in the Church: on the one hand to the influence of the Holy Roman emperors, resented by reformers like Bruno, and on the other to the growing institutionalisation of the Church promoted by the Roman popes, which could be felt as contrary to the spiritual ideals of the monastic circles to which Herveus belonged.

Regarding Bruno of Segni, whose writings date from the last decades of the eleventh century,Footnote 69 I must confess that at the first attempt I completely misread him as particularly reticent on the matter of converted Jews: unlike Haimo, he insists upon their small number.Footnote 70 Nevertheless, it is significant that Bruno, like Haimo, is not at all interested in Jerome's identification, which conveys the idea of an ending, of the converted Jews with the left-overs of the harvest in Isaiah xvii.4–6·Footnote 71 In actual fact, what he wants to express is his admiration for the great things, seen as a new beginning, that such a small group of persons has been able to accomplish. For instance, on Isaiah lxi.8–9, he states that ‘From so little seed, such a great harvest of believers could not have pullulated without the Lord's benediction.’Footnote 72 On Isaiah x.21–3 he proclaims his desire to be himself part of the small but blessed remnant of Israel whom the devil has not been able to devour,Footnote 73 and he concludes: ‘Indeed compared to those who are perishing few will be converted, by whom however justice will flow all over the earth.’Footnote 74 The contrast with Jerome is vast.

Bruno's commentary on Isaiah ix.1 tends in the same direction. If, by mentioning Sodom and Gomorrah, the prophet alludes to the Jews who have killed the Lord, he also makes it clear, Bruno tells us, that the Jews have not been completely rejected. It is on behalf of the salvation of the believers among the Jews, not on behalf of the reference, that Bruno quotes Romans xi.1–2 on this occasion.Footnote 75 The common identity of the ‘seed’ the prophet mentions and ‘the Apostles and those among the Jews who at that time believed’ is self-evident to Bruno who equates them by using ‘sunt’, ‘they are’. And, he continues, ‘from this seed the Church has pullulated, and are born all of those who are saved from the Jews’:Footnote 76 with the theme of the believing Jews, Bruno combines the theme of the Jewish origin of the Church. The image of the Church ‘pullulating’ from the seed of the Apostles is also present in Jerome and Bruno certainly took it from this source, but he transforms into a statement in its own right what Jerome uses mainly as an illustration of other ideas.Footnote 77 It is also a statement about what has actually happened: if, for Haimo, the early Jewish Church is a particular aspect of the ‘general Church’, for Bruno it is part of its historical past. Bruno also demonstrates a historicising tendency in his exposition of Isaiah xi.11–13 where he states explicitly, in the form of a historical account, what Jerome's interpretation only implies, namely that the Jewish diaspora was converted ‘maxima ex parte’, more than those dwelling in Jerusalem.Footnote 78

Bruno also insists on the – historical – connection between Jerusalem and Rome. Interpreting the image of the tent in Isaiah liv.2, he explains that the cords and stakes to be extended ‘are’Footnote 79 the Apostles and teachers of the Church (the usual interpretation is that they mean Christian preaching or doctrineFootnote 80), and that a particularly long rope ‘is’ the Apostle Peter who came all the way from Jerusalem to Rome in order to fix the stakes (of the Church's tent), in other words, to establish the papal see, just as St Paul, according to the same image, founded bishoprics all over the world.Footnote 81 In fact ‘the Church made its beginning in Jerusalem which is situated in the middle of the world, so that it might find space to extend all around’.Footnote 82 For Bruno, a supporter and friend of Pope Gregory vii, it is evident that the popes should reside in Rome, the noblest of all cities,Footnote 83 the mistress of the world,Footnote 84 but they should not appear as the heirs of the Roman emperors; so it is the Jewish apostolic foundation, not the Roman imperial tradition, that he calls upon to legitimate the supremacy of the Roman bishop.Footnote 85 The image of the extended rope conveys the idea that Jerusalem remains the centre, with which there is a permanent connection, whereas Jerome's images rather evoke departure from a distant and not necessarily perduring origin.Footnote 86

With Bruno, the union of the two peoples, as well as the unity of the two testaments, is again an important themeFootnote 87 and his quotations from Acts xiii.46 are meant not so much to accentuate the contrast between Jewish unbelief and the ready conversion of the Gentiles as to affirm the non-exclusion of the latter.Footnote 88 Moreover, whereas Jerome ends his explanation of Isaiah xi.11–13 with the Apostles turning from the Jews to the Gentiles, Bruno, dealing with the same verses, mentions only the Jewish converts.Footnote 89 If, like Haimo, he is aware of the fact that after the Apostolic age the Church has been primarily led by Gentile Christians, he resolves the contradiction by emphasising not so much the similarity of Jewish and Gentile Church, as Haimo does, but their historical continuity. The pastors ‘from the Gentile people who according to the flesh are alien from the generation of the Jews or the Apostles’, who now take care of the flock of the Lord, and in particular the bishop of Rome, preserve the legacy of the Jewish Apostles.Footnote 90 Like Haimo, Bruno pays particular attention to the question of Jewish conversion after the Apostolic age, at the end of time,Footnote 91 but he is also concerned with the present. ‘Who would not’, he writes, ‘finding a Jew, say to him: convert now?’ And he proclaims: ‘Each time a Jew is converted and remembers his God, the chalice of torpor and oblivion will be taken from his hand, and God will no more be angered against him.’Footnote 92

Herveus of Bourg-Dieu

Herveus of Bourg-Dieu, who wrote his commentary sometime between 1120 and 1150,Footnote 93 deals with the problem of the paucity of Jewish converts from yet another angle: he tells us that even if they were few, God takes special care of these original Jewish believers, and stops them from being lost or ‘dissipated’. To express this idea Herveus uses the image, to be found in Isaiah lxv.8–12, of the single good grape among the sour ones, which the harvesters will not throw away.Footnote 94 For his predecessors, the ‘granum in botro’ can equally mean the believing Jews, but they mainly use this image to illustrate the idea that the righteous will not be punished together with the sinners.Footnote 95 On the other hand, Herveus uses the term ‘pauci’, almost constantly associated with the term ‘reliquiae’ (or a form of the verb ‘relinquere’), in a number of different contexts: in addition to the elect few in comparison with the reprobate,Footnote 96 it can denote the Jews who, after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans, rebel again,Footnote 97 or to the Jews who remain after the different periods of captivity,Footnote 98 or to unconverted pagans,Footnote 99 or, on the contrary, to the pagans who are among the elect like Job and Melchisedech.Footnote 100 In the case of the few olives in Isaiah xvii.4–6 it is not clear whether the converted or the non-converted Jews, or each in turn, are intended; it seems that Herveus does his best to transfer the meaning from the former to the latter. He copies much of Jerome's exposition, but when he states that ‘like few halms and olives used to remain on the field or on the tree, few will be left over in Israel’,Footnote 101 there is no allusion to a conversion, and the context relates the sentence to the ‘inglorious’ state of the (unconverted) Jews after Christ; instead of Jerome's juxtaposition of Jewish glory and strength under Moses and David and the small number of those who received Christ at his coming, which he suppresses completely,Footnote 102 Herveus adds explicitly, as a possible interpretation, the paucity of the Jewish ‘remnant’ after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian.Footnote 103 So Herveus considerably relativises the problem of the small number of Jewish converts Footnote 104 and, moreover, does not hesitate to suggest that these Jewish Christians, even if fewer than Gentile Christians,Footnote 105 were nevertheless many: they form the ‘unanimis multitudo primorum credentium’,Footnote 106 or the ‘multitudo fidelium Hebraeorum’.Footnote 107

‘Fideles Hebraei’,Footnote 108 together with ‘fideles ex circumcisione’, is one of Herveus' favourite expressions;Footnote 109 he also uses the term ‘primitiva ecclesia’, leaving no doubt that this original Church consisted of Jewish converts.Footnote 110 The first to turn from the ‘perfidia Iudaeorum’ to Christ are – and this seems to be a new idea introduced by Herveus – none other than the shepherds of Bethlehem.Footnote 111 Herveus also insists that the Apostles, who ‘bring (the people of the Jews) back to the grace of the Redeemer’, act correctly: they fulfil God's promise to those who are ‘the sons of the prophets and of the covenant’ and who, after having awaited Christ, have been – it seems with a certain priority – redeemed by His blood.Footnote 112 There is no doubt that in Herveus' eyes believing Jews are privileged over Gentile Christians. More appropriately than those who have ‘dwelt in the squalor of paganism’ Jewish Christians can be called a ‘holy nation’.Footnote 113 So it is certainly an honour for the Gentile Church to be the daughter of the primitive ChurchFootnote 114 (as well as the granddaughter of the prophets and the great-granddaughter of the patriarchs, according to the family connection Herveus establishes between the patriarchs, the prophets and the ApostlesFootnote 115).

In addition to these arguments which are on the whole similar to those of Haimo or Bruno, Herveus has a special concern, which his predecessors did not have to the same extent, if at all, namely, to denounce the corruption and sinfulness of the contemporary Church.Footnote 116 This is why he opposes the original believers, both Jew and Gentile, to the false Christians of his own time,Footnote 117 or presents – in accord with St Augustine – the ‘fideles Hebraei’ as a model, according to Acts iv.32, where they are described as being of one heart and one soul.Footnote 118 This is also why he interprets Isaiah's prophecies as warnings or promises for the present Church as well as for the infidel Jews, present or past.Footnote 119 That is, whereas the traditional tendency is to attribute the prophet's promises of salvation to the Church and announcements of punishment to the Jews who have refused Christ, and moreover to consider both, essentially, as fulfilled, Herveus does not see the present condition of the Church as a static one, but rather that it is in a state of tension and expectation. For Haimo and Bruno this concerns primarily the Jews and their anticipated conversion, and only marginally the Church. For Herveus, on the contrary, contemporary Christians are sinners as were Jews in the days of Isaiah or Christ, and should listen to the prophet in order to amend their lives. The figures of Enoch and Elijah, traditionally associated with the final conversion of the Jews, assume, according to Herveus, not only this task but also the task of correcting the ‘evils which we see, every day, being multiplied among the Christian people’.Footnote 120 From this perspective, Herveus interprets Isaiah i.9 as a promise to the Church in which the righteous – who are here the ‘seed that will be saved’ – will never be entirely absent, even if ‘the multitude of the reprobate always abounds in this world’;Footnote 121 only as a second choice does he adds a ‘historical’ interpretation concerning the Jews. Here the main theme is the punishment of the unbelieving Jews of Jerusalem, amongst whom, however, ‘the Apostles and those who believed by their word’ are the seed that God has left.Footnote 122

In his exposition of Isaiah x.20–2, Herveus is concerned with repentance which – in connection with both the Church and the Jews – is a recurrent theme in his commentary: in this he also demonstrates greater affinity with St Augustine than his predecessors. He states briefly what seems evident to him: ‘This is said about those Jews who believed by the preaching of the Apostles’ and then quotes Acts ii.37 on the Jews who repent the killing of Christ. Unlike his colleagues he does not include among the ‘reliquiae’ the Apostles themselves, probably because in his eyes they did not need to repent.Footnote 123 Repentance and its exemplarity are more important here than the question of who may belong to the ‘remnant’ to be saved. As a second choice Herveus offers a reference to the Jews who will be saved at the end of time by means of the preaching of Enoch and ElijahFootnote 124 and who appear in his commentary still more frequently than in those of Haimo and Bruno. According to Herveus the Church lives in a transitional state, awaiting an eschatological conclusion, so the eschatological perspective on the Jews becomes more important too. Again a positive interpretation is offered: the Jews, converted by Enoch and Elijah, appear as the first to suffer martyrdom in the final persecution, taking the lead over other Christians.Footnote 125

Arnold of Bonneval and Rainald of St Eloi

A second group of authors, contemporary with Herveus, seems neither to care to give weight to the Jewish contribution, nor to minimise it: namely Arnold of Bonneval and Rainald of St Eloi.Footnote 126 Their commentaries are in large part transcriptions of Jerome: their aim was to transmit Jerome's learning to their contemporaries, which also means that they were concerned with correct references, although less polemical than Jerome himself, and not so much with questions about the identity of the Church. Arnold of BonnevalFootnote 127 generally repeats Jerome's ‘pauci’ and even his ‘paucissimi’,Footnote 128 as well as the three thousand, five thousand or many thousand believers,Footnote 129 whereas Rainald of St Eloi tends to leave out the latter and the former: interpreting Isaiah x.21–2, he does not even discuss the ‘reliquiae’.Footnote 130 Oddly, on one occasion Arnold understands the ‘many thousand’ believers as referring to Gentile Christians, but his concern is not to exclude the converted Jews but to illustrate the rapid growth of the Church among the Gentiles.Footnote 131 Neither of them, in any case, reproduces Jerome's ‘uix pauci’ and the corresponding reference to Josephus, just as neither of them presents Jewish Christians as a consistent group. For instance, the ‘sanctorum chorus’ which Rainald sets against the non-believing Synagogue in his exposition of Isaiah v.8–10 is ‘filled with the precepts of the decalogue’ but is not explicitly characterised as Jewish.Footnote 132 On the other hand, Rainald shares the interest in the final conversion of the Jews demonstrated by Haimo, Bruno and Herveus; another of his rare additions to Jerome is a note about this, at the hands of Enoch and Elijah.Footnote 133

Rupert of Deutz

One medieval commentator on Isaiah, however, clearly wants to minimise the Jewish contribution to the Church, even more so, indeed, than Jerome, namely Rupert of Deutz, who belongs to the generation in between Bruno and Herveus. In his exposition, which is part of his De sancta trinitate et operibus eius, we can read that the Apostles were taken from the root of Israel,Footnote 134 but the other Jews converted by them are rarely mentioned,Footnote 135 no numbers are given, neither three thousand nor five thousand certainly not many thousand. What is more, Rupert is the only commentator discussed in this article who fails to associate the ‘remnant’ in Isaiah i.9 with the Apostles and the first Jewish converts. His argument is that the Jews should not complain about their punishment, because they deserved to be destroyed completely like Sodom and Gomorrah; however, some of them, the ‘reliquiae’, have been preserved for conversion in the future, after the entry into the Church of the ‘plenitudo gentium’.Footnote 136 In his interpretation of Isaiah x.22 the ‘reliquiae’ are explained in the traditional way, with a renewed insistence on the theme of their paucity: unlike his medieval colleagues Rupert reproduces Jerome's ‘vix pauci’, and the reference to Josephus. However, what Rupert is interested in here is neither the conversion of the Jews nor the reference to Apostolic times, but the theme of human captivity by the devil, prompted by the mention of Assur in verse x.24.Footnote 137 As for Isaiah xi.11–12, which all the other authors including Jerome interpret as referring to the conversion of the Jewish diaspora, followed or not by that of the Gentiles,Footnote 138 Rupert interprets this verse as referring only to converted Gentiles.Footnote 139 Similarly, commenting on Isaiah ix.1 Rupert does not only, as it is usual, take the term ‘aggrauata est’ to refer to the unbelief of the Jews, but also omits the conversion of at least some of them which his colleagues generally associate with the term ‘alleviata est’ in the same verse.Footnote 140 In Rupert the Apostles feature almost exclusively in their relation to the Gentiles, not to the Jews: for instance, in the exposition of Isaiah iv.2 the Apostles are the ones who have been saved in Israel and who rejoice, but they rejoice because they see how much God has done, through them, among the Gentiles.Footnote 141 They are not presented as transmitting any valuable Old Testament tradition. On the contrary, Rupert adds a new feature to criticism of the carnal nature of the Old Covenant: explaining Isaiah iv.1 he states that Christians, unlike Jews, do not ask for other people to be killed, in order to take their land.Footnote 142

But if Rupert does not leave room for the existence of an original Christian Church composed of Jewish converts, he is closer to St Paul than was Jerome, and also close to St Augustine in another respect: he is very much preoccupied, as much if not more than his medieval colleagues, with the conversion of the Jews. In this context he presents St Peter's calling the Jews to penitence and baptism (Acts ii.37–43), as the equivalent of Isaiah's call for cleansing (i.16–18).Footnote 143 In this context is to be read Rupert's indulgent observation about the Jews who have called for the death of Christ: many of them, he says, did so not through envy, but in imitation of the majority;Footnote 144 this is followed by a remark about the cancelling of the sins of those who believe.Footnote 145 However, in Rupert's commentary, the conversion of the Jews appears primarily as a requirement, in the past as well as in the present and future, but very little, or not at all, as a fact to be stated.

These commentators' differing attitudes towards the original Jewish element in the Church may be explained by their relationship with Rome: ambivalence towards the Roman heritage may have favoured an appreciation of the Jewish one, just as identification with Rome may have created suspicion of Jews and ‘Judaizers’. Rupert who, like Bruno, was a partisan of the reform party, struggling against imperial influence in the Church, might have been suspicious of real or imaginary solidarity between Jews and the Roman empire: it has been shown that he tended to consider equally carnal the Jewish reading of the Bible and the interpretations put forward by the imperial party.Footnote 146 On the other hand Rupert had direct contacts with Jews, which his ‘pro-Jewish’ colleagues probably did not. In the case of Haimo, in particular, it has been argued that his image of the Jews resulted from projection, not from real encounters,Footnote 147 and the same is very likely true of Herveus: his life would be better known had he had significant contacts outside his monastery. Rainald of St Eloi may have been in contact with Jewish biblical scholars,Footnote 148 but only Rupert's biography includes a dispute with a Jew.Footnote 149 Perhaps his contemporary experience of Jewish-Christian conflict made it difficult for him to imagine an earlier unity, and might account for his revival of St Jerome's antagonism. Aside from such hypothetical explanations, another aspect has to be considered. In discussing Haimo, solidarity between Christians and Jews has been referred to. However, it should be noted that any such solidarity concerned Jews only insofar as they were actual or virtual converts, and does not prevent or even temper condemnation of unconverted Jews.Footnote 150 On the contrary, the perspective of assimilation, more than the perception of difference, may have impeded the acceptance of the ‘other’.

References

1 On Isaiah x.20–3; i.9: Sancti Hieronymi Presbyteri Commentariorum in Esaiam libri, ed. Marcus Adriaen, CCSL, Turnhout 1968, lxxiii–lxxiiiA.141, 14. For general discussion see Pierre Jay, L'Exegèse de Saint Jérôme d'après son ‘commentaire sur Isaïe’, Paris 1985.

2 I leave aside the question of Jerome's Greek sources, in particular Eusebius of Caesarea. See Simonetti, Manlio, ‘Sulle fonti del commento a Isaia di Girolamo’, Augustinianum xxiv (1984), 451–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gryson, Roger and Szmatula, Dominique, ‘Les Commentaires patristiques sur Isaïe d'Origène à Jérôme’, Revue d’études augustiniennes xxxvi (1990), 3–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 ‘Et reuera si legamus Iosephum et quanta hominum in Hierusalem et in Iudaea fuerit multitudo quando passus est Dominus, intellegimus vix paucos in apostolis et apostolicis uiris ex Iudaeis esse saluatos’: on Isaiah x.20–3, CCSL lxxiii.141.

4 On Isaiah xvii.5–6, CCSL lxxiii.185; xvii.4–6, CCSL lxxiii.269; xvii.12–14, CCSL lxxiii.272; xxvii.12, CCSL lxxiii.352; xli.8–16, CCSL lxxiiiA. 472; liii.1–4, CCSL lxxiiiA.588 (equally frequent is the statement that only some of the Jews were saved).

5 ‘De quorum humilitate eliguntur quasi in stipula spicae et quasi in uindemia racemi, qui saluati fuerint, et sicut excussio oliuae duarum aut trium oliuarum, siue quattuor aut quinque. Quando enim uenit percussio populi Iudaeorum, oliua illa populi Israel quae sub Moyse sexcenta milia habuit armatorum et sub Dauid numerante Ioab innumerabilem populum, uix paucos fructus offerre potuit Domino Saluatori’: CCSL lxxiii.269.

6 ‘illi pauperes messis reliquias, quae per apostolos saluatae sunt … legent’: ibid.

7 Acts ii.1; iv.4. ‘Multa milia’ does not appear directly in Acts (in xxi.20 there is ‘quot milia’), but is a current expression for instance in St Augustine's Enarrationes in Psalmos, when speaking of the first Christian community according to Acts. See p. 7 below.

8 The three thousand and five thousand: on Isaiah i.3, CCSL lxxiii.9; i.9, CCSL lxxiii.14; xi.11–14, CCSL lxxiii.154; lxvi.7–9, CCSL lxxiiiA.777; many thousand: on Isaiah lii.1, CCSL lxxiiiA.575; lii.11–12, CCSL lxxiiiA.585. See n. 37 below.

9 In Jerome's exposition of Isaiah lii.11–12, CCSL lxxiiiA.585, the conversion of the ‘many thousand’ underlines the success of the Apostles who leave Jerusalem as victors, not vanquished like the unconverted Jews. But its importance is restricted by the prospective submission of the ‘world’ to the Gospel: ‘[apostoli] multa milia Iudaeorum Christi fidei subiecerant, etiam mundum illius euangelio subiugarent’.

10 ‘Ex quo ostenditur, superiora quae contra Hierusalem et Iuda sermo propheticus comminatus est, non ad Babylonicae captiuitatis referenda tempus, sed ad ultimam Romanorum, quando in apostolis saluae factae sunt reliquiae populi Iudaeorum, et una die crediderunt tria milia et altera quinque milia et in toto orbe euangelium seminatum est’: CCSL lxxiii.14.

11 ‘Et quia dixerat reliquias esse saluandas, transit ad posteriora tempora, et plenam saluationem futuram dicit esse sub Christo. Quod advertens beatus Paulus scribit ad Romanos: Esaias autem clamat … Vbi ergo tanti uiri praecedit auctoritas, cesset alia omnis interpretatio’: CCSL lxxiii.140–2.

12 For instance on Isaiah lii.1: ‘Omnia autem quae promittuntur Sion et Hierusalem, non ut Iudaei somniant ad lapides illius et cineres fauillasque dicuntur, ut instauretur in pristinum statum, sed ad populum Hierusalem … Qui corruens in passione Christi, in resurrectione illius suscitatus est, quando multa milia crediderunt de Iudaeis, et reliquiae saluae factae sunt’: CCSL lxxiiiA.574f; cf. Prol. CCSL lxxiii.6; on Isaiah xi.11–14, CCSL lxxiii.153; liv.1, 4, CCSL lxxiiiA.601, 604; lx.1, CCSL lxxiiiA. 693.

13 CCSL lxxiii.154f.

14 ‘ut nequaquam iuxta nostros Iudaizantes in fine mundi cum intrauerit plenitudo gentium, tunc omnis Israel saluus fiat. Sed haec omnia in primo intellegamus aduentu’: ibid.

15 CCSL lxxiiiA.689.

16 On Isaiah xxix.22–4: ‘Tunc confundetur Iacob (at the advent of Christ) qui modo interim non confunditur … Et uultus illius erubescet, ut rubor atque confusio occasio sit salutis, praecipue cum uiderit filios suos, id est apostolos et apostolicos uiros, qui fuerunt de genere Iudaeorum, in medio nationum Domini perpetrare uirtutes, et Christi nomen gentibus praedicare, et dicere: pater noster’: CCSL lxxiii.380.

17 Cf. on Isaiah xi.11–14, CCSL lxxiii.155, or on xli.8–16, CCSL lxxiiiA.472, where the believing Jews are persecuted by the non-believing ones. In the commentary on Isaiah xvii.12 the rarity of Jewish believers: ‘per apostolos atque in apostolis paucorum de Iudaeis credentium electio’, is related to the ‘uocatio gentium et abiectio Iudaeorum’, with a reference to the preceding exposition of Isaiah xvii.4–6, CCSL lxxiii.272.

18 He quotes this verse nine times, which is the case for only five other biblical verses; only one, John xiv.6, is quoted more often (11 times): CCSL lxxiiiA, ‘index locorum sacrae Scripturae’.

19 Jerome starts with a long description of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the dispersion of the non-believing Jews and their reduction to a small number, opposing this to the salvation of the converts: ‘Si quis autem crediderit in Christum, et impletum fuerit illud quod supra legimus: Nisi Dominus sabaoth reliquisset nobis semen … Quando iuxta apostolum reliquiae saluabuntur, hoc semen sanctum erit, et de apostolorum germine cunctae ecclesiae pullulabunt’: CCSL lxxiii.94f.

20 On Isaiah lxv.23–5: ‘Apostoli igitur et apostolici uiri ita filios generabunt, ut de scripturis sanctis instruant, ut non imitentur maledictionem Iudaeorum’: CCSL lxxiiiA.766.

21 For instance on Isaiah ii.3, CCSL lxxiii.29.

22 On Isaiah vii.4–6: ‘illi pauperes messis reliquias, quae per apostolos saluatae sunt, et rarissimas spicas legent, non de montibus et erectis locis, sed in ualle Raphaim, id est in litterae uilitate’: CCSL lxxiii.269.

23 On Isaiah ii.3, CCSL lxxiii.29.

24 See John G. Gager, The origins of anti-semitism: attitudes towards Judaism in pagan and Christian antiquity, New York–Oxford 1983, 127f. In fact the Christians following Jewish customs, the ‘Judaizers’ attacked by Jerome, are to be found especially in the eastern part of the Roman empire (ibid. 124, 188f), and are less of a problem for Christians living in the west, like St Augustine (see p. 7 below). On the controversy between Jerome and St Augustine on Galatians ii.11–14, and the problem of ‘Judaizing’, see Paula Frederiksen, ‘Secundum carnem: history and Israel in the theology of St Augustine’, in William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey (eds), The limits of ancient Christianity: essays on late antique thought and culture in honor of R. A. Markus, Ann Arbor 1999, 26–41 at p. 38.

25 Cf. on Isaiah xiv.2–4: ‘Restat igitur ut (Iudaei) iuxta fabulas suas de imperio hoc putent futurum esse Romano, quibus superatis in ultimo tempore, seruiturae sint eis gentes quibus ante seruierint. Quod si sequentes litteram, spe se falsa decipiunt, quis eis concedet, ut Roma uocetur Babylon, et Nabuchodonosor rex Romani imperii?’: CCSL lxxiii.237. See Hervé Inglebert, Les Romains chrétiens face à l'histoire de Rome: histoire, christianisme et romanité en occident dans l'antiquité tardive (IIIe–Ve siècles), Paris 1996, 280.

26 See Bernhard Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins, Basle 1946, repr. Paris 1973, 112. To the references quoted there more can be added with the help of the CLCLT database. See also Caroline P. Bammel, ‘Die Juden im Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes’, in H. Frohnhofer (ed.), Christlicher Antijudaismus und jüdischer Antipaganismus: ihre Motive und Hintergründe in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, Hamburg 1990, 145–51, repr. in her Tradition and exegesis in early Christian writers, Aldershot 1995, xiii.

27 For instance In Iohannis euangelium tractatus cxxiv, ed. D. Radbodus Willems osb, Turnhout 1954, CCSL xxxvi.347, or Enarrationes in Psalmos, ed. D. Eligius Dekkers osb and Iohannes Fraipont, Turnhout 1956, CCSL xxxix.5–46.

28 CCSL xxxvi.347.

29 See especially Enarrationes in Psalmos lxxviii.2, CCSL xxxix.1089; xc.7, CCSL xxxix.1336; cxlviii.16, CCSL xl.2151.

30 For Haimo of Auxerre, an example of direct dependence upon St Augustine is given by Bernhard Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs chrétiens latins du moyen-âge sur les juifs et le judaïsme, Paris 1963, 204, but it concerns the unconverted Jews and does not come from the commentary on Isaiah.

31 Ibid. 86, 132.

32 It has been observed that Haimo does not hesitate to note the sometimes diverging opinions of his sources and to choose the one that he finds more adequate: Silvia Cantelli Berarducci, ‘L'esegesi della rinascità carolingia’, in Giuseppe Cremascoli and Claudio Leonardi (eds), La bibbia nel medioevo, Bologna 1996, 190. However, the opinions rejected are those of recent or dubious authors like Claudius of Turin or Origen, not Jerome to whom Haimo appeals as to a secure guide: ‘ut beatus Hieronymus dicit’ is a standard expression: on Isaiah ii.2–3, PL cxvi.730A; xxix.1, PL cxvi.856C; xxix.17, PL cxvi.860A and passim). In Haimo's frequent enumerations of the ‘expositores divinorum eloquiorum’, or ‘sancti doctores’, Jerome is usually present together with St Ambrose, St Augustine, St Gregory, St Hilary: for example on Isaiah xxx.25, PL cxvi. 869C; xxxiii.21, PL cxvi.889A; xl. 20, PL cxvi. 918C. Interpretations that diverge from Jerome's may be added, but without a judgement: for instance on Isaiah xxx.29, PL cxvi.871D.

33 See Dominique Iogna-Prat, ‘L'Oeuvre d'Haimon d'Auxerre’, in D. Iogna-Prat, C. Jeudy and G. Lobrichon (eds), L'Ecole carolingienne d'Auxerre: de Murethach à Rémi (830–908), Paris 1991, 157–89; John Contreni, ‘Haimo of Auxerre's commentary on Ezechiel, ms. Paris 12302’, ibid. 229–42; and Raffaele Savigni, ‘Il commentario a Isaia di Aimone di Auxerrre e le sue fonti’, in C. Leonardi and G. Orlandi (eds), Biblical studies in the early Middle Ages: proceedings of the conference on biblical studies in the early Middle Ages (Gargnano on Lake Garda 2001), Florence 2005, 215–38. Haimo's commentary, ‘Haymonis Halberstatensis episcopi commentariorum in Isaiam libri tres’, attributed, like the rest of his work, to Haimo of Halberstadt, is published in PL cxvi.715–1086. A critical edition is being prepared by Corinne Gabriel.

34 For instance on Isaiah xxvii.10–12, PL cxvi.846D; lii.15, PL cxvi.988A; xlii.1, PL cxvi.923B.

35 For instance on Isaiah iii.25, PL cxvi.742B; xix.18, PL cxvi.811A; xlv.6, PL cxvi.943D.

36 See the text of Haimo's commentary on Isaiah x.21–2 quoted in n. 44 below.

37 For instance, on Isaiah i.9, PL cxvi.722A, quoted in n. 43 below. There are seven more occurrences: on Isaiah i.3, PL cxvi.719A; iv.2–3, PL cxvi.744C; xi.12, PL cxvi.782B; xxvii.9, PL cxvi.845C; xlix.19, PL cxvi.968B; lii.1, PL cxvi.981D; lxvi.7, PL cxvi.1078B, and two mentions of the three thousand and five thousand without the many thousand: on Isaiah x.21, PL cxvi.776C, and lx.1, PL cxvi.1031B.

38 I have found the first occurrence of the adding which becomes popular in the Middle Ages in Cesarius of Arles, Sermones Caesarii uel ex aliis fontibus hausti, sermo 88 cap. 2: ‘quia crediderunt una die tria milia, item alia die quinque milia, item postea multa milia’: CCSL ciii.362.

39 PL cxvi.803A–B. This interpretation is also to be found in Jerome's commentary, in book v where he concentrates on the historical meanings, the allegorical senses being reserved to book vii. But in the historical sense of Isaiah xvii.4–6 Jerome includes also the the reference to the Roman conquest, that is to the time of Christ, and to the Apostles: CCSL lxxiii.185.

40 On Isaiah lxii.2–3: ‘quando (apostoli) viderunt multitudinem Iudaeorum et multitudinem gentium venire ad fidem’: PL cxvi.1043D.

41 For instance on Isaiah lxv.8, CCSL lxxiiiA.751.

42 On Isaiah lx.1, PL cxvi.1031A; on xlix.14, PL cxvi.967C.

43 ‘Hoc de reliquiis apostolorum aliorumque fidelium est intelligendum, qui post Domini adventum crediderunt ex Iudaeis, de quibus dicitur in actibus apostolorum quod una die crediderunt tria millia, alia die quinque millia, et deinceps multa millia. Egregius quoque praedicator, in epistola ad Romanos de iisdem reliquiis ita loquitur: Reliquiae secundum electionem gratiae salvae factae sunt’: PL cxvi.722A.

44 ‘Hoc ad adventum Christi pertinet. Vox prophetae. O domus Israel, licet tanta multitudo sit in medio tui quasi arena maris: tamen ad comparationem illorum, quidquid in duritia cordis remanebit, adveniente Christo in carne, quasi reliquiae convertentur ex ipsis ad ipsum [Romans ix.11]. Quae fuerunt istae reliquiae? Apostoli, et alii qui ante ascensionem Domini crediderunt ex ludaeis Et illi de quibus legitur in actibus apostolorum: Quia praedicante Petro crediderunt una die tria millia, altera die quinque millia’: PL cxvi.776B–C.

45 As has also been noted by Savigni, ‘Il commentario’, 25, Haimo probably found it in Bede who uses it especially in In primam partem Samuhelis, for instance at CCSL cxix.153, and passim. In Jerome's text we find ‘prima Christi ecclesia’, on Isaiah xliii.1, CCSL lxxiiiA.489, but the usual formulation is: the Church which was assembled first (‘primum’), and he may or may not add ‘from the Jews’: see, for instance, on Isaiah lx.2, CCSL lxxiiiA.694; lx.4, CCSL lxxiiiA.695.

46 For instance, on Isaiah xliii.1, ‘Nunc vero alloquitur primitivam ecclesiam, quae constitit in apostolis, et eis qui per eos ex Iudaeis credidere’: PL cxvi.930A–B; or, on lx.1, ‘ad ecclesiam primitivam ea referimus, quae collecta est ex Iudaeis in apostolis videlicet qui ante passionem Domini crediderunt, et in illis qui post illius resurrectionem ascensionemque ad coelos praedicantibus apostolis fidem Dei perceperunt, de quibus dicit Lucas, quod uno die crediderunt tria millia et caetera quae sequuntur’: PL cxvi.1031B.

47 On Isaiah ii.2–3: ‘Per Sion … et per Hierusalem … intelligitur primitiva ecclesia, quae fuit in apostolis aliisque credentibus ex Iudaeis, de qua processit ad omnes nationes lex veteris testamenti spiritualiter intellecta, et verbum Domini doctrina evangelii. Potest etiam et de generali ecclesia intelligi, de qua quotidie manat lex, et doctrina evangelii’: PL cxvi.730A.

48 PL cxvi.908A.

49 CCSL lxxiii.455.

50 On Isaiah lxvi.7: ‘antequam parturiret Sion, hoc est primitiva ecclesia, et antequam veniret partus eius, id est in velocitate temporis, peperit masculum fortem, videlicet populum, quando una die crediderunt quatuor millia, altera die quinque millia, ac deinceps multa millia: ex quorum numero fuit beatissimus Stephanus, aliique quamplurimi filii apostolorum, qui antea potuerunt occidi quam a fide Christi separari’: PL cxvi.1078B.

51 On Isaiah xlix.14–21, PL cxvi.967D–968A.

52 On Isaiah lix.21: ‘Semen illius debemus intelligere omnes successores eius, qui eodem spiritu sancto repleti fuerunt, ut fuit Jeremias, et caeteri ante captivitatem, Ezechiel et Daniel in captivitate, Aggaeus, Zacharias, ac Malachias post captivitatem, et deinde apostoli, martyres, omnesque doctores sanctae ecclesiae, de quorum ore processit doctrina veteris et novi testamenti. Spiritus enim sanctus qui docuit Isaiam, transivit per successores ad apostolos': PL cxvi.1030C–D. St Augustine's comparable text in Enarrationes in Psalmos lxx.2, CCSL xxxix.1098, expresses this idea of continuity only marginally.

53 On Isaiah ii.3: ‘Ecclesia primitiva quae fuit in apostolis aliisque credentibus ex Iudaeis, de qua processit ad omnes nationes lex veteris testamenti spiritualiter intellecta, et verbum Domini doctrina evangelii’: PL cxvi.730A.

54 On Isaiah xliii.9: ‘Postquam crediderunt qui praedestinati erant ex Iudaeis in Christum, congregatae sunt et gentes. Congregatae sunt ergo gentes, et collectae sunt tribus, hoc est Iudaei. Et factum est tam ex gentibus quam ex Iudaeis unum ovile Domini, in quo quotidie congregantur unitate fidei, in baptismate, et in una perceptione corporis et sanguinis Christi’: PL cxvi.932A–B.

55 For instance on Isaiah liv.1: ‘revertitur ad vocationem gentium, et ad eos qui in eum crediderunt tam ex Iudaeis quam ex gentibus’: PL cxvi.993B, to be compared with Jerome's ‘transit ad uocationem gentium, et qui in illo sint credituri, pleno sermone describit’: CCSL lxxiiiA.599.

56 On Isaiah xliii.1: ‘populus Israel in duo dividitur, in credentes et non credentes. Similiter et gentiles’: PL cxvi.930A.

57 On Isaiah lx.1–2, CCSL lxxiiiA.694, a formulation which Haimo takes up on another occasion: see n. 58 below.

58 ‘Quod cecidit in synagogis per infidelitatem, restaurabunt in illis qui crediderunt ex Iudaeis Et quod cecidit ab exordio mundi in gentibus per idololatriam, restaurabunt et erigent ipsi per culturam omnipotentis Dei’: PL cxvi.1044A–B. Similarly, on Isaiah lxii.4, ‘Sicut displicuit Domino Iudaeis in infidelitate manentibus, et in gentibus post idololatriam ambulantibus, sic complacuit ei in credentibus ex utroque populo, ad fidem eius venientibus’: PL cxvi.1048B. Or, on Isaiah lx.14, PL cxvi.1038B.

59 On Isaiah xl.4: ‘Prava, id est tortuosa corda publicanorum et pharisaeorum, qui venerunt per praedicationem Domini et apostolorum eius ad fidem, facta sunt recta ad bona opera peragenda. Et aspera, id est intractabilia et dura corda scribarum et pharisaeorum, et gentilium, in vias planas, hoc est in mollitudinem et lenitatem conversa sunt, dum venirent ad fidem, ut Matthaeus narrat’: PL cxvi.909A. Moreover, Haimo is one of the rare medieval authors (there are only four other occurrences in texts published by Migne) to quote Acts vi.7: ‘multa turba sacerdotum obediebat fidei’ (on Isaiah lx.14, PL cxvi.1038B).

60 For instance on Isaiah lx.14, PL cxvi.1038B. On this passage see E. Mégier, ‘Otto of Freising's revendication of Isaiah as the prophet of Constantine's “exaltation of the Church”, in the context of Christian Latin exegesis’, Sacris Erudiri xlii (2003), 287–326 at p. 302f. Other occurrences are on Isaiah liii.4, PL cxvi.989C; lix.15, PL cxvi.1028C. However, if there is an echo of St Augustine's theme of repentance in these passages, it is rather faint.

61 ‘Quomodo enim in abscondito Iudaeus est, qui spiritu circumciditur … sic et sacerdotes et levitae in abscondito sunt, qui non seriem generis sequuntur, sed ordinem fidei. Vel certe non dicit de apostolis et apostolicis uiris, qui principes fuerunt ecclesiae ex populo Iudaeorum, sed de enumeratis supra gentibus, de mari, de Africa … quarum habitatores primum non audierant Dominum, nec uiderant gloriam eius, et postea uertentur in sacerdotes, et qui fuerant cauda, sint caput, et qui caput, uertantur in caudam’: CCSL lxxiiiA.793f.

62 ‘Assumam, inquit, ex eis, subaudis ex gentibus qui crediderunt, et erunt mihi in sacerdotes et Levitas, reprobato sacerdotio Iudaeorum. Unde dicit apostolus: Translato, inquit, sacerdotio, necesse est ut legis translatio fiat [Hebrews vii. 12]. Quod probari potest ex hoc, quia modo ex Iudaeis aut rarus aut nullus invenitur sacerdos in sancta ecclesia, aut aliquis minister. Et in singulis ecclesiis sacerdotes et ministros mysteriorum Christi ex gentibus cernimus qui quotidie corpus et sanguinem Christi pro redemptione generis humani offerunt in commemorationem passionis eius’: PL cxvi.1084A–B. This can be compared with St Augustine's remark on the absence of circumcised Christians in the present time, whereas they were numerous in the past: Enarrationes in Psalmos xxxiii.1, CCSL xxxviii.278.

63 ‘Hoc dupliciter potest intelligi, ut referatur tam ad Iudaeos quam ad gentiles. Assumam inquit ex eis, id est ex Iudaeis credentibus, et erunt mihi in sacerdotes et levitas … Sacerdotes enim erant, quia sacra responsa dabant populis, et semetipsos offerebant Deo, et alios quos ei sua praedicatione acquirebant: ut Paulus Timotheum. Levitae erant, id est assumpti, quia a Domino fuerunt electi, et assumpti ad officium praedicationis’: ibid. Here starts the interpretation quoted in n. 62 above, introduced by ‘Aliter’.

64 ‘Et sicut apostoli semetipsos offerebant Deo, et alios quoscunque poterant, ita et sacerdotes gentium. Verbi gratia, sicut fecit beatus Hilarius, qui beatum Martinum Deo obtulit. Levitae sunt, quia ad hoc ministerium assumuntur’: ibid.

65 A ‘Judeophilic’ attitude has also been detected in the works of Hrabanus Maurus by Jean-Louis Verstrepen: ‘Raban Maur et le judaïsme dans son commentaire sur les quatre livres des rois’, Revue Mabillon n.s.vii=lxviii (1996), 23–55.

66 On Isaiah xi.11: ‘Vel etiam secundo adiiciet manum suam in die iudicii, quando praedicante Elia et Enoch, omnis Israel qui inventus fuerit salvabitur’: PL cxvi.782A; cf. on Isaiah xxxii.15, PL cxvi.880, and passim. See also Savigni, ‘Il commentario’, 31.

67 On Isaiah xxii.24: ‘Referendum est ad diem iudicii. Veniente enim antichristo, postquam plenitudo gentium intraverit, praedicante Elia et Enoch omnis Israel salvabitur. Et in illo tempore complebitur illud quod dictum est: Superabundabit iniquitas, refrigescet charitas multorum [Matthew xxiv.12] Multi enim prae timore antichristi, et afflictione negabunt Christum, et tunc confringetur paxillus, id est evangelium quod erat in ecclesia, et ex parte cessabit, et transibit ad Iudaeos’: PL cxvi. 823D–824A. Cf. Robert E. Lerner, The feast of Saint Abraham: medieval millenarians and the Jews, Philadelphia 2001.

68 See Iogna-Prat, Jeudy and Lobrichon, L'Ecole carolingienne d'Auxerre, avant-propos, 6; Janet L. Nelson, ‘Charles le Chauve et les utilisations du savoir’, ibid. 37–54, and ‘Kingship and empire in the Carolingian world’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), Carolinigan culture: emulation and innovation, Cambridge–New York 1994, 52–87 at pp. 69–72.

69 Bruno's Isaiah commentary has been published by G. Amelli in Spicilegium Casinene complectens, Analecta Sacra et Profana, iii/1, Monte Cassino 1897, as ‘Anonimi seu S. Brunonis Astensis commentarium in Isaiam hucusque deperditum ex Cod. Casinensi’. On Bruno and his writings see Réginald Grégoire, Bruno de Segni: exégète médiéval et théologien monastique, Spoleto 1965; Giuseppe Fornasari, ‘L'esegesi gregoriana’, in Cremascoli and Leonardi, La bibbia nel medioevo, 212; and Robinson, I. S., ‘Political allegory in the biblical exegesis of Bruno of Segni’, Recherches de theologie ancienne et médiévale l (1983), 69–98Google Scholarn.

70 For instance, on Isaiah xlix.1–4, ‘vanae fortitudinem meam in populo Iudeorum consumpsi: quia valde pauci mea predicatione ad fidem sunt conversi’: ‘Brunonis commentarium’, 140.

71 He adopts the identification of the olives with the Apostles, but as a hypothesis only: ‘quidam autem … olivas … apostolos intelligere volunt’: ibid. 54.

72 ‘Neque enim sine illius benedictione ex tam pauco semine tanta fidelium messis ubique pullulare posset’: ibid. 185.

73 ‘Nemo inquit dubitet residuos Israhel qui in captivitatem sive a Senacherib sive a diabolo ducti non fuerint super Dominum inniti quia revera absque dubio reliquiae Israel convertentur. Et notandum quod a littera ad spiritum transeat ut intelligamus post Christi passionem cum exercitu suo diabolo superato caeteris Iudeis deceptis et in diaboli captivitatem deducti paucos quos reliquias appellat in Dominum credidisse. Et o vere beate reliquiae, quas iam saturatus diabolus devorare non potuit. Utinam et nos ipsius reliquiae simus, neque ad eius dentes aliquando perveniamus’: ibid. 36. The first sentence concerns the Jews before Christ, and the rest those after the coming of Christ: this is what Bruno expresses by the passage from the ‘letter’ to the ‘spirit’.

74 ‘Pauci quidem ad pereuntium comparationem de Israel convertentur, per quos tamen ubique terrarum iustitia inundabit’: ibid.

75 ‘Hoc autem ideo dixit ne quis putet Iudeos ideo a Deo penitus esse repulsos, quia totam superius narravit civitatem fuisse destructam. Unde et apostolus ait, non reppulit Dominus plebem suam quam prescivit. Nam et ego Hisraelita sum ex semine Abraham, et ex tribu Beniamin’: ibid. 3.

76 ‘Semen istud apostoli sunt et qui ex Iudeis tunc temporis crediderunt. De hoc autem semine aecclesia pullulavit, de quo et nati sunt quicumque ex Iudeis salvantur’: ibid.

77 In particular on the opposition between the believing and the non-believing Jews: see Jerome's exposition of Isaiah vi.11, CCSL lxxiii.94 (quoted at n. 19 above) and of xlv.17, CCSL lxxiiiA.515. On Isaiah xlviii.17, CCSL lxxiiiA.531, ‘pullulare’ is used by Jerome in a pejorative sense for the Jews who ‘like worms’ (‘instar uermiculorum’), continue to multiply in the present.

78 ‘Veniente igitur Christo et evangelica predicatione ubique resonante, Iudei qui ubique dispersi erant maxima ex parte ad fidem Christi conversi sunt … Plures enim ex his qui dispersi fuerant crediderunt, quam ex his qui in Hierusalem morabantur’: ‘Brunonis commentarium’, 39.

79 Here again the verb is ‘sunt’, which is also a way to present the prophecy directly as an account of historical events.

80 Cf. Jerome, CCSL lxxiiiA.603; Haimo, PL cxvi.995A.

81 ‘Funiculi namque quibus tabernacula tenduntur, et claves quibus terrae ne forte ruant affiguntur, Apostoli sunt et doctores. Longus funiculus beatus Petrus qui ab Hierusolimis Romae venit figere clavum. Sed quid de Paulo dicam, cui nec terra sufficiebat undique circa tabernaculum discurrens quasi clavos singulis quibusque civitatibus episcopos infigebat et constituebat?’: ‘Brunonis commentarium’, 158.

82 ‘Ideo enim in Hierusalem quae in medio mundi sita est, aecclesia caepit, ut undique circa se locum haberet ad quem se extendere posset’: ibid.

83 On Isaiah liv.3, ibid.

84 On Isaiah lx.5, ibid. 179.

85 Cf. Mégier, ‘Otto of Freising’, 305–6.

86 On Isaiah ii.3: ‘Sed et in Hierusalem primum fundata ecclesia totius orbis ecclesias seminauit … Et pulchre non dixit: in Sion et in Hierusalem erit et manebit uerbum et lex Domini, sed egredietur, ut de illo fonte omnes nationes doctrina Dei significet irrigandas’: CCSL lxxiii.29.

87 For instance on Isaiah i.26: ‘Tales tibi iudices et consiliarios dabo quales Moises et Aaron fuerunt quales et ceteri qui te antiquitus docuerunt. Per quos apostolos intelligimus, qui iudices et consiliarii et Iudeis et gentibus dati sunt, quotquot ex utroque populo credere voluerunt. Post hec vocaberis civitas iusti, urbs fidelis. Hoc autem de illis intelligitur qui ex Iudaico populo ad fidem Christi venientes unam cum gentibus aecclesiam perfecerunt’: ‘Brunonis commentarium’, 5.

88 See, on Isaiah ii.3, ibid. 6.

89 Ibid. 39.

90 On Isaiah lxi.3–5: ‘Pecora namque illa quae prius apostolis Dominus commisit, nunc alieni pascunt quia ex gentili populo qui secundum carnem a generatione Iudeorum vel apostolorum alienus est pastores et episcopi in aecclesia eliguntur … Magnum in hoc apostolorum privilegium commendatur, quod semel susceptas semper possident hereditates. Nemo enim post beatum Petrum Romae praefuit qui eius oves non paverit, eius agrum non coluerit, eius vineam non laboraverit’: ibid. 184.

91 For instance, on Isaiah xiv.1–2: ‘Allegoricae autem mundi huius terminum quem per Babilonem significari diximus, prope esse significat. In quo … aliquas reliquias eliget de Israel. Quia cum plenitudo gentium introierit tunc Israel salvus fiet. In diebus enim illis salvabitur Iuda et requiescere eos faciet super humerum suam … Tunc advena adiungetur ad eos, gentium videlicet populus, ut fiat unum ovile et unus pastor. Et tenebunt eos populi sanctorum sive angelorum et deducent eos in locum suum, id est in Hierusalem caelestem’: ibid. 45.

92 On Isaiah xxii.17–21: ‘Quis enim Iudeum inveniens non dicat convertere nunc?’: ibid. 65; on Isaiah li.21–3: ‘Quotiens enim Iudeus convertitur et Dei sui recordatur, totiens de manu eius calix soporis et oblivionis aufertur … et ulterius eis Deus non irascatur’: ibid. 151. According to Berger, David, ‘Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian contacts in the polemical literature of the high Middle Ages’, American Historical Review xci (1986), 576–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Bruno's interest in the conversion of the contemporary Jews seems to have been rather an exception at his time.

93 The only specific publication concerning this author seems still to be Germain Morin, ‘Un Critique en liturgie au XIIe siècle: le traité inédit d'Hervé de Bourgdieu De correctione quarumdam lectionum’, Revue bénédictine xxiv (1907), 36–61, quoted by Constable, Giles, ‘Forgery and plagiarism in the Middle Ages’, Archiv für Diplomatik xxix (1983) 1–41Google Scholar, repr. in his Religious life and thought (11th–12th centuries), London 1979, i. 24. A publication is being prepared by Pierre Boucaud.

94 Venerabilis Hervei Burgidolensis monachi commentariorum in Isaiam libri octo, PL clxxxi.17–592. We read, on Isaiah lxv.8–12, ‘Nam quasi granum in botro est inventum, quando pars, quae doctrinam ecclesiasticam susceperat, reperta est in populo Iudaeorum. Sicut enim granum ad botrum, ita pauci credentes ex Iudaeis in comparationem fuerunt reliquae multitudinis illorum, quae credere nolens disperiit. Et de hac minima parte electa dictum est: Ne dissipes illud, quoniam benedictio est, quando Patrem pro discipulis oravit. Et ideo Dominus populum illum non disperdidit totum quoniam eos, qui fidem receperunt, a perditione salvavit, et ab excidio et captivitate illorum eripuit’: PL clxxxi.571B–C.

95 See Jerome, CCSL lxxiiiA.750f; Haimo, PL cxvi.1067C–D.

96 On Isaiah xxiv.4–6, PL clxxxi.233C; xxiv.13, PL clxxxi.235C.

97 On Isaiah iii.5: ‘Capta vero Jerusalem, cum paucae eorum reliquiae in perniciem suam denuo rebellare tentarent, audiamus quid fecerint’: PL clxxxi.56C.

98 On Isaiah xvi.12–14, PL clxxxi.182A–B.

99 On Isaiah xviii.18–19: ‘Reliquiae autem ligni saltus eius sunt reliquiae gentilitatis, quae fidem recipere noluerunt. Sed iam prae paucitate numerari possunt, quia raro invenitur quis qui Christianus non sit’: PL clxxxi.135A. Similarly, on Isaiah xiv.12–15, PL clxxxi.165A.

100 On Isaiah liii.3, PL clxxxi.560A.

101 On Isaiah xvii.4–6: ‘et quomodo paucae spinae et olivae remanere solent in agro vel in arbore, sic relinquentur pauci in Israel’: PL clxxxi.184B.

102 We can add that Herveus' term ‘ingloriosi’, applied to the Jews after Christ, is a transformation of Jerome's ‘gloriosi’, used for the pre-Christian Jews.

103 ‘sic et Iudaeorum reliquiae fuerunt paucae post excidium Jerusalem’: PL clxxxi.185A. This is an interpretation rejected by St Augustine in Enarrationes in Psalmos lxx.2, CCSL xxxix.1090.

104 In his commentary on Romans Herveus on the one hand concedes that Jewish converts were but few, and even repeats Jerome's quotation from Josephus, but his general theme is the vocation of the Jews along with the Gentiles: ‘Quia … et gentium vocationem, de quibus minus videbatur, astruxerat prophetico testimonio, vult similiter auctoritate prophetica Iudaeorum vocationem ostendere.’ What Herveus wants to emphasise is that some Jews did believe, even if they were few (‘Hoc est, etiam si multitudo non crediderit, tamen pauci credent’) as well as their importance: ‘Hi enim qui ex circumcisione crediderunt, vocantur semen, quia sparsi per terras multiplicati sunt, et velut grana seminis copiosam segetem fidelium germinaverunt. Et propter istos non fuerunt Iudaei sicut Sodoma et Gomorrha, quia non omnes fuerunt reprobi, nec omnes perierunt, quoniam isti sunt electi atque salvati de multitudine illorum’: PL clxxxi.736B–737C.

105 On Isaiah lx.6 the prophet speaks of a ‘flood of camels … quia iam in hac plebe fidelium non nisi conversa gentilitas cernitur. Tanta est enim multitudo gentium qui crediderunt ad comparationem illorum, qui de circumcisione venerunt’: PL clxxxi.543A–B. However, one can ask whether Herveus appreciates this multitude, after the very negative description he gives of the Gentiles at the beginning of his exposition: the camels, he declares, signify the ‘tortuosae gentilium mentes’, while the dromedaries mentioned by Isaiah refer to those ‘qui in illo populo [i.e. the Gentiles] noxia libertate dissoluto discurrebant vagi ad omnia mala quae volebant’.

106 On Isaiah lxvi.5, PL clxxxi.580C.

107 On Isaiah iv.2, PL clxxxi.68C; cf. on lxv.8–12, PL clxxxi.571C. Herveus, like Haimo, adds the ‘multa milia’ to the three thousand and the five thousand, for instance on Isaiah xxxiii.2, PL clxxxi.310D–311A.

108 The only additional ocurrence I have found is in Bede, In primam partem Samuhelis l.IV iii.17, CCSL cxix.151, where the term designates Old Testament Jews.

109 There are other other occurrences: on Isaiah vii.21–2, PL clxxxi.104B; xxxiii.12, PL clxxxi.310C; xxxvii.7–8, PL clxxxi.346D; xlii. 25, PL clxxxi.410C; xliv.6, PL clxxxi.413B; xlviii. 12, PL clxxxi.452B; lvii.1–2, PL clxxxi.516B; lxii.8–9, PL clxxxi.558B.

110 For instance on Isaiah xli.8–9: ‘Vel primitivam ecclesiam possumus nunc Israel accipere, quam ab extremis terrae et a longinquis eius vocavit de universis nationibus congregans primum populum Iudaeorum’: PL clxxxi.392C.

111 On Isaiah viii.1–2: ‘Debellaturus enim in toto orbe regnum diaboli haec prima puer illi spolia detraxit, ut a perfidia Iudaeorum pastores ad se converteret et magos ad se adorandum conversa a peste illius superstitionis averteret’: PL clxxxi.106A–B. There are precedents, from St Augustine to Anselm of Laon passing by Gregory the Great, but these authors do not speak of conversion: their idea is that the shepherds and the magi signify, respectively, the two components of the Church, the Jews and the Gentiles. See, for instance, St Augustine, Sermones, ‘In epiphaniam Domini’, PL xxxviii.1026–30.

112 On Isaiah i.27: ‘Sion quae dicitur specula, plebs Iudaeorum est quae Christi praestolabatur adventum. Hanc enim Christus ipse veniens suo sanguine redemit … et postquam redempta est, reduxerunt eam apostoli ad gratiam Redemptoris Et hoc fecerunt in iustitia, quia iustum erat, ut ea filiis implerentur, quae fuerant promissa patribus. In hac iustitia Petrus eam reducere satagebat, cum diceret: vos estis filii prophetarum et testamenti, quod disposuit deus ad patres nostros [Acts xxxiii.25–6]. De illis vero, qui converti noluerunt, subiunctum est’: PL clxxxi.40A.

113 On Isaiah lxii.12: ‘Hebraeos, qui crediderunt, vocamus ita, ut dicamus: Iste est populus sanctus, et in sanctitate nutritus, qui etiam redempti sunt a Domino. Ecclesia vero de gentibus licet et ipsa populus sanctus vocari possit, tamen quia prius in squalore gentilitatis conversata est, non ita populus sanctus vocari consuevit, sed specialiter appellatur civitas quaesita et non derelicta, quoniam salvator eam utpote perditam quaesivit, et inventam non dereliquit’: PL clxxxi.558D–559A.

114 On Isaiah lxii.11: ‘Vos, inquit, o praedicatores, dicite filiae Sion, id est ecclesiae de gentibus, quae filia est primitivae ecclesiae: noli timere’: PL clxxxi.558C–D.

115 On Isaiah vii.1: ‘quoniam apostoli sunt prophetarum filii et prophetae filii patriarcharum’: PL clxxxi.95C. In the same text, interpreting the names of the persons mentioned by the prophet, Herveus presents the Christians as the brothers of the Jews.

116 See Giles Constable, ‘Twelfth-century spirituality and the late Middle Ages’, in O. B. Hardison, Jr (ed.), Medieval and Renaissance studies, v, Chapel Hill, NC 1971, 27–60, repr. in his Religious life and thought, xv, 39f.

117 For instance on Isaiah i.3: ‘quia quem Hebraicus et gentilis populus Deum cito cognovit, et ad eius gratiam a pristino ritu facile convolavit, hunc populus iste falsorum Christianorum, qui cum lacte carnis ab uberibus sanctae ecclesiae nutritus est et ex parentibus Christianis ortus, cognoscere non valuit’: PL clxxxi.24A. Or on Isaiah ii.7–9: ‘Quod autem nunc de domo Jacob dicitur, non de iustis, sed de hac multitudine peccantium, quae Christi nomen adhuc confitetur, debet intelligi’: PL clxxxi.48D–49A.

118 On Isaiah iv.2: ‘Et tunc exsultatio fuit his qui salvati erant de Israel, id est discipulis eius, quia sic certificati sunt de gloria resurrectionis eius ut eo coelos petente ipsi non solum nulla tristitia efficerentur, sed etiam gaudio magno replerentur … et eamdem laetitiam habuit multitudo reliquorum fidelium Hebraeorum, quorum erat cor unum et anima una’: PL clxxxi.68C. Similarly, on Isaiah xiv.1, PL clxxxi.160C.

119 On Isaiah iii.8: ‘Ruit enim Jerusalem … quia destructa est ab exercitu Romanorum, et Iuda concidit, quia populus Iudaeorum illis miserabiliter succubuit … Sed nunc repetentes videamus utrum de aliis quam de Iudaeis intelligi possunt’: PL clxxxi.57A–B. Here Herveus presents a violent denunciation of the abuses in the present Church, and concludes ‘Jerusalem id est ecclesia ruit quia murus fidei et disciplinae circa finem saeculi dissipatus est, atque turres arduarum virtutum delapsae sunt. Et Iuda, id est fidelium populus concidit, quia fere tota haec plebs statum rectitudinis amisit’: PL clxxxi.60C.

120 On Isaiah i.21–3: ‘Sed haec mala quae depinxit hactenus, et quae in hoc Christiano populo multiplicari quotidie cernimus, per Eliam corrigentur, ut credimus, quia Salvator in evangelio dicit: Elias venturus est, et restituet omnia [Matthew xvii.11]’: PL clxxxi.43A.

121 ‘Ne ergo tota simul religio in hac plebe sicut apud Sodomitas pereat, et sola regnet iniquitas, relinquitur semen, quod salvetur, quia licet multitudo reproborum semper in hoc saeculo nimis abundet, et maxime circa mundi finem, nequaquam tamen electi omnes ita subtrahuntur, ut solummodo perversi remaneant sicut in Sodomis, sed omni tempore iusti relinquuntur, qui caeteris exempla bonitatis ostendant’: PL clxxxi.29D–30A.

122 ‘Historialiter autem ab eo quod dictum est: terra vestra deserta, usque ad illud quod dicit: sicut civitas quae vastatur, praenuntiatum est excidium patriae Iudaeorum, quod Romani perpetraverunt, quando facta est per Vespasianum terra eorum deserta … quando obsidiente et capiente filio eius Tito Jerusalem, relicta est sicut tugurium in cucumerario … Et nisi Dominus exercituum reliquisset eis semen, quasi Sodoma vel Gomorrha fuissent, quia nisi Christus apostolos et qui per verbum eorum crediderunt, ibi reliquisset a passione eius, illic solummodo reprobi sicut in Sodomis remansissent’: PL clxxxi.30B.

123 ‘Hoc de illis dictum est Iudaeis, qui crediderunt praedicantibus apostolis Nam residuum Israel est, de quo Paulus ait: Sic ergo et in hoc tempore reliquiae secundum electionem gratiae salvae factae sunt [Romans xi.5]. Et illi fugerunt de domo Jacob, id est de synagoga, qui tandem intelligentes hunc esse Christum, quem crucifixerunt, compuncti sunt corde, et dixerunt ad apostolos: quid faciemus, viri fratres? [Acts ii.37]. Iam enim quaerebant effugium. Nec innisi sunt ultra super eum, qui percutiebat eos, et est super hostem antiquum, qui persequebatur illos et vulnerabat animas eorum, sed innisi sunt super fundamentum, quod est Christus, perseverantes in doctrina apostolorum’: PL clxxxi.135B–C.

124 ‘Potest hoc etiam de illis intelligi qui praedicante Elia credituri sunt. Nam caecitas ex parte contingit in Israel, donec plenitudo gentium intraret et sic omnis Israel salvus fieret [Romans xi.15]. Sed sive de illis qui tempore apostolorum crediderunt, sive de illis qui in fine credituri sunt accipiatur, evidens est quod subditur’: ibid.

125 On Isaiah xv.9: ‘Sed ne haec (persecutio antichristi) improvisa veniens omnes passim, quos imparatos invenerit, involvat, Henoch et Eliam ante huius exortum venturos in mundum, qui Israeliticam plebem ad fidei gratiam convertant, et ad pressuram tanti turbinis in parte electorum insuperabilem reddant. Qui, cum in primos tres semis annos praedicaverint, tunc exardescens illa horrida persecutio ipsos in primis martyrii virtute coronet deinde caeteros fideles corripiens vel martyres vel apostatas faciet’: PL clxxxi.177A–B.

126 Rainald's Isaiah commentary is preserved in Paris, BN, ms nat. lat. 494, Arnold's in Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale, ms 923. On Rainald, and his much more original commentary on the Pentateuch, see Dahan, Gilbert, ‘Une Introduction à l’étude de l’écriture au xiie siècle: le prologue du commentaire du Pentateuque de Rainaud de Saint-Eloi’, Recherches de theologie ancienne et médiévale liv (1987), 27–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 Arnold is better known for his other works, for instance his life of St Bernard, and his treatise De cardinalis operibus Christi: Giles Constable, Three studies in medieval religious and social thought, Cambridge 1995, 192.

128 On Isaiah xvii.4–6, 12–14, and xxvii.12 see ms Troyes 923, fos 42v, 43v, 62v; on Isaiah liii.1–4, see fo. 103v.

129 On Isaiah i.3, 9; xi.11–14; lii.11 see ms Troyes 923, fos 2v, 3r, 27r, 103v.

130 ms nat.lat. 494, fo. 27rb–va. The paucity of the Jewish converts is emphasised less than by Jerome in Rainald's commentary on Isaiah xvii.4–6 (fo. 42va), where the reference of the olives to the Apostles is left out, but it is regularly repeated, whereas the ‘thousands’ appear only in the commentary on Isaiah lxvi.7–9 (fo. 169va).

131 On Isaiah lxvi.7–9, ms Troyes 923, fo. 127v.

132 ‘Cum enim synagoga in fidei sterilitate peruenit sanctorum chorus decalogi preceptis doctorum predicatione repletus et ad fidem sancti trinitatis perductus per bonorum iugera operum ad perfectam ueniet libertatem per fidei spei et caritatis uirtutem’: ms nat. lat. 494, fo. 13rb.

133 On Isaiah v.5–6, ibid. fo. 13ra.

134 ‘Vinea enim, inquit, Domini exercituum, domus Israhel. Haec dilecto facta est acquisitione, non auri neque argenti, sed multorum mirabilium quae fecit in terra Aegypti … Nam idcirco illi facta est, ut praeparatam sibi ille adueniens possideret, et per suum sanguinem sanctificaret. Quod et fecit. Omnes enim per suum sanguinem de inferno eduxit, quorum pars uinea bona est. Sed et de radice eius apostolos sumpsit, de quibus uel per quos totus mundus bonis uitibus impletus est’: Ruperti Tuitiensis, De sancta trinitate et operibus eius, ed. Hrabanus Haacher osb, Turnhout 1972, In Isaiam prophetam, on Isaiah v.1–2, CCCM xxiii.1481.

135 There is a concentration of references to the ‘apostolici viri’ towards the end of the commentary: on Isaiah lxi.3–4, CCCM xxiii.1554; lxi.5–6, CCCM xxiii.1555; lxii.6–7, CCCM xxiii.1561 (in addition to their appearance in the commentary on Isaiah x.22, CCCM xxiii.1512), but they are never described as Jewish.

136 ‘Non dicatis: ira haec nimis est grandis, multitudo malorum nostris maior est meritis, nam nisi Dominus exercituum reliquisset nobis semen, nisi praedestinasset, ut reliquiae ex nobis saluae fierent, non obsidione hominum circumdaremur, non gladiis Romanorum interficeremur, non captiui in omnes gentes duceremur, sed sicut super Sodomam et Gomorram pluit sulphur et ignem Dominus a Domino, ita iustissime super nos in uindictam sanguinis sulphur et ignem pluisset Filius Dominus a Patre Domino. Sed si hoc fecisset non superessent reliquiae, quae salvae fierent ex nobis, postquam plenitudo gentium subintroierit’: CCCM xxiii.1460. Similarly, on Isaiah iv.1, CCCM xxiii.1478.

137 ‘Ergo iste Assur est diabolus, cuius captiuitati hic manifeste contradicitur. Vbi enim apostoli procedit auctoritas, cesset alia omnis interpretatio. Isaias, inquit, clamat pro Israhel. Si fuerit numerus filiorum Israhel tamquam arena maris, reliquae saluae fient …. Et reuera si legamus Iosephum et quanta hominum in Hierusalem et in Iudaea fuerit multitudo, quando passus est Dominus, intelligimus uix paucos in apostolis et apostolicis uiris ex Iudaeis esse saluatos. Notandum tandem quam ordinate diabolicae tyrannidis et damnationis eius similitudo praecessit in isto Assur’: CCCM xxiii.1512.

138 Cf. Jerome, CCSL lxxiii.154f., or ‘Brunonis commentarium’, quoted in n. 78 above.

139 On Isaiah xi.11–12: ‘Congregantur profugi Israhel, colliguntur huc a quattuor plagis terrae dispersi Iuda, ipsa namque congregatione uel collectione sua fiunt Israhel, fiunt Iuda quaelibet gentes, quaelibet nationes. Quid porro est quod ait: adiciet Dominus secundo manum suam ad possidendum residuum populi sui? Quid, inquam, nisi quia iam dudum manum suam extendit ad possidendum, sed adhuc locus erat? Nempe in manu forti eduxit filios Israhel de terra Aegypti, et illos per passionem suam in domum suam induxit, sed uidit quia adhuc locus est, quia nondum electorum numerus completus est. Adiecit ergo secundo manum suam, leuando scilicet signum illud, non tantum in Israhel, sed in nationes’: CCCM xxiii.1520–1; or on lxi.5–6, with the inclusion of the ‘apostolici viri’: ‘O fortes iustitiae, o plantatio Domini, sancti apostoli atque apostolici uiri, alieni, qui non erant de gente uestra, alieni, inquam, filii peregrinorum, id est gentiles, qui non erant ut uos de carne Abrahae, stabunt deuota fide, ad uestrum seruitium, ut pascant pecora uestra, uestras comportent uindemias, ut quibus uestra seminastis spiritualia, digne illorum metatis carnalia’: CCCM xxiii.1555.

140 ‘Alleuiata est terra Zabulon et terra Nepthalim, et nouissimo aggrauata est, id est praesentis Domini Iudaea et praedicationem audiuit et miracula uidit, assumpti autem in caelum uerbum reppulit, et uitae aeternae indignam se iudicauit. Primum illis oportuit loqui, nouissime ad gentes ire uel mittere, quia Iudaea cor suum aggrauauit’: CCCM xxiii.1507.

141 On Isaiah iv.2: ‘Et erit exsultatio his qui saluati fuerint de Israhel, exsultabunt enim apostoli, uidentes quanta per eos Deus in gentibus operatus est’: CCCM xxiii.1479 (very different from Herveus, and especially from Bruno); or on Isaiah vi.1, where the gifts of the Holy Spirit, given to ‘apostolis et ceteris in se credentibus’, are opposed to the blindness of the Jews: CCCM xxiii.1490.

142 ‘Non quaerimus ut propter nos ullae gentes occidantur, quarum terram optimam, terram lacte et melle manantem obtineamus’: CCCM xxiii.1478.

143 On Isaiah i.16–18: ‘Lauamini, mundi estote. Si forte compuncti aliqui ex uobis dicant ad Petrum et ad reliquos apostolos meos? Quid faciemus, uiri fratres, ecce dico uobis, Lauamini. Quod est dicere: paenitentiam agite, et baptizetur unusquisque uestrum in nomine Domini. Itaque lauamini, mundi estote, id est baptizamini et nolite rursus malis operibus munditiam baptismatis perdere … Et cum haec feceritis, venite et arguite me. Non enim contemnam ego Dominus iudicium uobiscum subire. Proponite causas, praemia exigite. Magnum quippe baptizati et mundati aduocatum habetis apud me, cuius lauistis uos sanguine, cuius purificati estis fide … Haec est lex Dei nostri, o populus Gomorrae. Omnem multitudinem uictimarum uestrarum, omnes solemnitates uestras odiuit anima mea, inquit. Solum hoc est quod uolo: Lauamini’: CCCM xxiii.1463.

144 On Isaiah vi.5: ‘uir pollutus labiis ego sum, quod in persona illorum recte dici facta ipsa consentiunt. Clamauerunt enim: Tolle, tolle, crucifige, crucifige! Veraciter ex eo polluta se labia cognouerunt habere, sed seducti fuerant et per ignorantiam tali clamore labia sua polluerant. Sequitur ergo: Et in medio populi polluta labia habentis, ego habito. Multi enim ex eis non per inuidiam clamauerunt, sed multitudinem secuti sunt’: CCCM xxiii.1492.

145 On Isaiah vi.6–7: ‘Iste unus de seraphim Petrus apostolus exstitit, qui gratiae pennis aduolans dixit: paenitentiam agite [Acts ii.38]. In manu eius calculus, inquit, calculus donum est spiritus sancti, quo peccata comburuntur in Christum credentium. Illud in manu erat seraphim, id est in potestate Petri apostoli prae ceteris. Illi namque Christus claues regni caelorum specialiter tradidit’: CCCM xxiii.1492f.

146 See David E. Timmer, ‘The religious significance of Judaism for twelfth-century monastic exegesis: a study in the thought of Rupert of Deutz, c. 1070–1129’, unpubl. PhD diss. Notre Dame 1983, 75.

147 See Johannes Heil, Kompilation oder Konstruktion? Die Juden in den Pauluskommentaren des 9. Jahrhunderts, Hanover 1998, 376–80.

148 See Dahan, ‘Une Introduction’, 32.

149 See John van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 1983, 241–8; Maria Lodovica Arduini, Ruperto di Deutz e la controversia tra cristiani ed ebrei nel secolo XII, con testo critico dell' Anulus seu dialogus inter Christianum et Iudaeum a cura di Rhabanus Haacke, OSB, Rome 1979, 116–17; and Timmer, Religious significance, and ‘Biblical exegesis and the Jewish-Christian controversy in the early 12th century’, Church History lviii (1989), 309–21. See also the remarks on Rupert and the Jews in Anna Sapir Abulafia, Christians and Jews in the twelfth century renaissance, London–New York 1995, passim.

150 For instance, Herveus' text quoted in n. 94 continues: ‘Sed vos, inquit, o perfidi Iudaei … numerabo vos in gladio Romanorum vel novissimae ultionis’. On Haimo see Heil, Kompilation, and ‘Labourers in the Lord's quarry: Carolingian exegetes, patristic authority and theological innovation: a case study in the representation of Jews in the commentaries on Paul’, in Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (eds), The study of the Bible in the Carolingian era, Turnhout 2003, 75–95.