Abstract

Recent scholarship on the history of Jewish-Christian relations in the twelfth century has focused on a number of subjects, including the possible origins of virulent anti-Judaism in the period, but very little sustained attention has been given to the theoretical assessments of Judaism proposed by Christian intellectuals in these crucial decades. The history of twelfth-century theories of Judaism is important for at least two reasons: it is essential to our understanding of the history of Christian thought, and is also of obvious importance in the larger history of Jewish-Christian relations. By writing a comprehensive, critical study of Judaism in Abelard's thought and by comparing Abelard's ideas to those expressed by several of his contemporaries, I have tried to illuminate the history of Christian ideas about Judaism among the intellectual and religious elite of the first half of the twelfth century. ;Peter Abelard's writings on Judaism are abundant and varied. In two of his works, he utterly transforms pervasive themes in Christian anti-Jewish polemic so that they lose their polemical force. In several other works, he considers subjects more properly constituent of a theory of Judaism: the status of Judaism before the advent of Christianity, its status immediately after the advent of Christianity, the relation of Jewish beliefs and practices to those of Christianity, and the presence of such beliefs and practices in Christianity. In general, Abelard has a very elevated view of the value of Judaism and its importance to Christianity. ;Abelard's approach to Judaism is distinguished from the practical, polemical, and personal approach typified by two non-scholastic intellectuals of his generation, Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable. The difference, I suggest, is explained in part by their very different intellectual commitments. In a further comparison of Abelard's thought to two other outstanding philosopher-theologians of the first half of the twelfth century, Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard, an important divergence in scholastic theories of Judaism becomes apparent. Abelard and Hugh both emphasize theological likeness and historical continuity between Judaism and Christianity. Lombard, on the other hand, sometimes deliberately disagreeing with Abelard and Hugh, emphasizes difference and discontinuity. ;The dissertation also contains an appendix of hitherto untranslated writings of Abelard relevant to his theology of Judaism