THE FIRST JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES Ram Ben-Shalom I N the Middle Ages, Jewish ethics and Christian ethics were not dichotomous socio-religious categories. Scripture served members of both religions as a common text from which values, ethical concepts, and behavioral models were derived by means of a long-term exegetical process. Classical and Hellenistic literature also found parallel expression in the Patristic literature and in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature respectively—cornerstones of the ethical outlooks of both religions. Much of the difference between Jewish and Christian ethical approaches stemmed from the ethical views expressed in the Gospels and other books of the New Testament, which were not accepted by the Jews, although the New Testament also includes many ideas that parallel those represented in Jewish sources. Christian ethical methods were not terra incognita to Jews in the Middle Ages. Jewish-Christian polemics, which were an important component of religious-intellectual discourse at the time, included—alongside the many traditional subjects of religious debate—the question of the superiority of Christian ethics over Jewish ethics. For example, in Joseph Kimhi’s Sefer haberit [Book of the Covenant] (southern France, before 1165), the first Hebrew anti-Christian polemical work written in Western Europe, we find a debate between representatives of the two religions as to which society is ethically and socially superior. Opposite the image of an ideal Jewish society described by the Jewish polemicist, his Christian counterpart proffers the example of those Christians “who separate themselves in their way of life from the world and from its pleasures and dwell in forests and deserts in affliction all their days.” 1 The Jewish polemicist in Sefer ha-berit finds this particular argument more difficult to refute than the Christian’s other religious arguments, but 1 Joseph Kimhi, “The Book of the Covenant,” in Disputation and Dialogue: Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter, ed. Frank Ephraim Talmage (New York, 1975), 12. See Robert Chazan, “Kimhi’s Sefer ha-Berit: Pathbreaking Medieval Jewish Apologetics,” The Harvard Theological Review 85 (1992): 417–32. Mediaeval Studies 75 (2013): 205–70. © Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. DISTRIBUTION 206 R. BEN-SHALOM notes that Christian monastics in fact constitute an insignificant minority, unrepresentative of Christian society as a whole, and so fail to demonstrate the superiority of Christian ethics. 2 Nevertheless, he does not reject the monastic ideal itself, and the argument that such Christians are few in number in fact casts monasticism—as a practice engaged in by virtuous individuals—in a positive light. Although Sefer ha-berit was written for a Jewish readership in order to provide them with strong arguments for the purposes of religious polemic, it also reveals a certain appreciation of important Christian values lacking in Jewish society. The sharp criticism by German, French, and Spanish Jews of the immorality of the monastics stemmed, according to David Berger, from a sense of discomfort at the religious devotion of the latter. The impressive sight of men and women surmounting their own desires in order to fulfill God’s will, although problematic from a Jewish perspective because of the positive attitude to conjugal relations in Jewish religious thought and law, also undermined—to some degree—the Jewish self-image of ethical superiority over Christians. 3 Earlier, in the first half of the twelfth century, the famous Hebrew poet Judah Halevi noted, in the Kuzari, Christian ethical values such as those found in Matt. 5:39: “He who smites thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left also; and he who takes away thy coat, let him have thy shirt also,” 4 as well as the self-sacrifice of Christian martyrs and the ideology of martyrdom developed by the Church. 5 These and other concepts from the New Testament, as well as later developments such as penance, monasticism, and ecstasy, were often the subject of religious debate, thus compelling Jews to voice their opinions on Christian values. Christian art, which includes visual expressions of negative and positive ethical positions, was also an integral part of the environment inhabited by Jews, who often passed by churches and cathedrals, and may even have ventured a furtive glance inside.6 Furthermore, like their 2 Kimhi, “Book of the Covenant,” in Disputation and Dialogue, ed. Talmage, 13: “Now with respect to your statement that there are many holy people among them [the Christians] who separate themselves from this world in their lifetime, [it must be said] that they are one in a thousand or ten thousand, while the rest are contaminated by the ways of the world.” 3 David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Niẓẓaḥon Vetus (Northvale, N.J., 1996), 27, and “On the Image and Destiny of Gentiles in Ashkenazic Polemical Literature” [Hebrew], in Yehudim mul ha-ṣelav: Gezerot tatnu bahistoriyah u-va-historiyografyah [Facing the Cross: The Persecutions of 1096 in History and Historiography], ed. Yom Tov Assis et al. (Jerusalem, 2000), 79. 4 Judah Halevi, Al-kitāb al-Khazarī 1.113, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld, The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel (New York, 1964), 78. 5 Ibid. 4.22, trans. Hirschfeld, Kuzari, 225–26. 6 See, for example, the account of Hermann of Cologne (formerly Judah ben Levi) who, in DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 207 Christian neighbors, Jews could absorb the ethical interpretation of artistic representations through the Christian sermons to which they were exposed, willingly and unwillingly, from the thirteenth century on. 7 Further examples may be cited of references by Jewish scholars to Christian values encountered in the course of their daily lives. In Spain, for example, Solomon Alami enthusiastically praised the Church for its successful collection of tithes from its adherents (in the period following the mass conversions in Aragon and Castile, and following the Tortosa Disputation, 1412– 14). According to Alami, contrary to the situation in Jewish communities, tithes to the Church were freely and graciously given, primarily by the wealthy, who thereby contributed to the glory of the Church, its scholars, and its houses of prayer. In this fashion, he argues, “their religion was made strong.” 8 Other scholars, such as the preacher and exegete Joel Ibn Shuaib (Tudela, late fifteenth century), praised the Christian system of atonement and absolution, which dedicated “a specific house and a specific figure” to forgiveness, atonement, and absolution. 9 The halakhist Menahem ha-Meiri of Perpignan (second half of the thirteenth century) also expressed admiration 1129, entering a church for the first time at the age of twenty, was awed by the paintings and statues he saw there and shocked by the figure of the crucified Christ, but observed the works of art very closely; the images he saw there of Christ and the saints led him to initiate a debate with the abbot Rupert of Deutz (Hermannus quondam Iudaeus [Hermann of Cologne], Opusculum de conversione sua, chap. 2, ed. Gerlinde Niemayer, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 4 [Weimar, 1963], 75; and see 76–82 for the debate in chaps. 3–4). Even those who reject the historicity of Hermann’s story do not deny the value of his testimony regarding the possibility that Jews may have entered churches out of the same kind of curiosity he describes. See Jeremy Cohen, “The Mentality of the Medieval Jewish Apostate: Peter Alfonsi, Hermann of Cologne, and Pablo Christiani,” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. Todd M. Endelman (New York, 1987), 29–35. See also Joseph Shatzmiller, Cultural Exchange: Jews, Christians, and Art in the Medieval Marketplace (Princeton and Oxford, 2013). 7 Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982), esp. 82–84; Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley, 1989), 44–48; Mark D. Johnston, “Ramon Llull and the Compulsory Evangelization of Jews and Muslims,” in Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the Middle Ages. Studies in Honor of Robert I. Burns S.J., vol. 1, ed. Larry J. Simon (Leiden, 1995), 5–37; Robert Chazan, “Confrontation in the Synagogue of Narbonne: A Christian Sermon and a Jewish Reply,” The Harvard Theological Review 67 (1974): 437–57. 8 See Solomon Ibn Lahmish Alami, ʾIggeret musar ʾo ʾiggeret ha-tokheḥah ve-ha-ʾemunah [Epistle of Ethics or Epistle of Admonition and Faith], ed. A. M. Haberman (Jerusalem, 1946), 48. Although Alami’s primary purpose was to criticize Jewish society for its own failings, the instructive counterexamples he provided from Christian society are no less valid. See Marc Sapperstein, “Christians and Jews: Some Positive Images,” The Harvard Theological Review 79 (1986): 236–46. 9 See Joel Ibn Shuaib, Noraʾ tehillot [Awesome in Praise] 42 (Salonica, 1568/9), 97b. DISTRIBUTION 208 R. BEN-SHALOM for the Christian approach to repentance and for Christian literature on the subject. In his youth, noting the absence of such works among Jews, he wrote Ḥibbur ha-tešuvah [Treatise on Repentance], in which he stressed the need for constant introspection, because of the imminence of death. Although his non-Jewish sources were primarily Muslim, he was apparently influenced to some extent by Christian penitential literature, which aroused believers to repentance with threats of hellfire and graphic descriptions of the torments that await the unrepentant. 10 Ha-Meiri’s approach reflects a new understanding of the importance of the exhaustive and comprehensive literary composition (summa). He believed that the gathering of concepts and ideas scattered over many sources in a single exhaustive and comprehensive work affords significant advantages (ethical and polemical) to the side that possesses it, explicitly noting that his awareness of the lack of such a work in the Jewish camp was occasioned by the remarks of a Christian. 11 A central Christian ethical method in the Middle Ages was that of the seven deadly—or capital—sins, contrasted by the four cardinal virtues and three theological or spiritual virtues. This theological approach developed among eremitic monks in Egypt, in the writings of Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), as a method of eight evil thoughts or tendencies of the soul, and was introduced to Western Europe by John Cassian—for the training of cenobitic monks—as the eight principal vices. Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), in his Moralia in Job, treated the principal vices as seven (vainglory, envy, wrath, sadness, avarice, gluttony, lust), all stemming from pride, and the seven or eight vices served in the early Middle Ages as the basic categories of evil. With the development of penitential theology, and following the Fourth Lateran Council 10 Joseph Dan, Sifrut ha-musar ve-ha-deruš [The Ethical and Homiletical Literature] (Jerusalem, 1975), 158. 11 Menahem ha-Meiri, Ḥibbur ha-tešuvah [Treatise on Repentance], ed. Abraham Sofer (New York, 1949/50), 2: “And indeed I felt driven to action, when a gentile [i.e., Christian] scholar spoke to me, revealing—among other things—their astonishment, in the commentaries on their books, at the fact that members of our religion have abandoned the ways of repentance completely, neither heeding their suffering, nor growing faint with hardship, nor mortifying the flesh of their hearts. And [the gentile scholars] speak of this at length, [adding] that we are also denied confession, for the sins of our people are forgiven and its sins pardoned [directly by God]. And they have concluded among themselves that the reason for this is that we have no single comprehensive work containing all of the ways of repentance, but only scattered [references] here and there, which is why its ways are hidden from us and [according to them] we inherit the sins of [our] youth. I was thus determined to elucidate the subject of repentance, its definitions, conditions, details, and general principles, and the behavior it requires of those who practice it.” See Gregg Stern, Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Interpretation and Controversy in Medieval Languedoc (London and New York, 2009), 33–38. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 209 (1215), preists were called upon to preach about the capital sins, and penitents during confession were examined according to these categories. 12 This ethical method is considered an exclusively Christian literary genre. Medieval Jewish ethical works, such as Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi’s Šaʿarei tešuvah [Gates of Repentance] (Aragon, thirteenth century), Isaac Aboab’s Menorat ha-maʾor [Candelabrum of Light] (Spain, fourteenth century), Israel Al-Nakawa’s Menorat ha-maʾor (Spain, fourteenth century), and ʾOrḥot ṣaddiqim [Ways of the Righteous] (Germany, fifteenth century), discuss various sins and righteous modes of behavior—some of which correspond to the deadly sins and the virtues—but lack a single, comprehensive, traditional method that analyzes and categorizes abstract concepts on a psychological basis. 13 Direct references by Jewish authors to the deadly sins first begin to appear in the late fourteenth century, in the Kingdom of Aragon, treating the method in negative terms for the purposes of religious polemic. The Aragonese Jewish leadaer Hasdai Crescas, for example, notes the method of the deadly sins and points out its flaws in his Biṭṭul ʿiqqarei ha-Noṣrim [Refutation of Christian principles] (ca. 1398), written to address the wave of conversions to Christianity among Jewish intellectuals after the persecutions of 1391. Crescas asserts that a perfect faith is one that guides its adherents to (ethical) perfection and (spiritual) felicity with greater simplicity and ease than other faiths. Christianity is not a perfect faith, he argues, because its ethical demands are more difficult than those of other faiths and are in fact impossible for most people. The concept of deadly sins posits the destruction of the soul as a result of natural behavior such as wrath, gluttony, or sloth, which are in fact general human habits, shared by society as a whole. The Christian prem12 Richard Newhauser, “Introduction,” in In the Garden of Evil: The Vices and Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard Newhauser, Papers in Mediaeval Studies 18 (Toronto, 2005), x– xi. For general background, see Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, With Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (East Lansing, Mich., 1952; rpt. 1967); Siegfried Wenzel, “The Seven Deadly Sins: Some Problems of Research,” Speculum 43 (1968): 1–22, and esp. 2; Richard Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 68 (Turnhout, 1993), 181–97; Columba Stewart, “Evagrius Ponticus and the ‘Eight Generic Logismoi,’ ” in In the Garden of Evil, ed. Newhauser, 3–34; Carole Straw, “Gregory, Cassian and the Cardinal Vices,” in ibid., 35–58; and Siegfried Wenzel, “Preaching the Seven Deadly Sins,” in ibid., 145–69. It should be noted that acedia was replaced by tristitia in Gregory’s list of the seven sins, and two versions of the list were current until the twelfth century, when sloth and sadness were unified into a single sin (acedia vel tristitia), in Peter Lombard’s Sententiae (completed after 1137); see Siegfried Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: “Acedia” in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1967), 23–29. 13 See Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 14–15. DISTRIBUTION 210 R. BEN-SHALOM ise that one may lose eternal life for having committed any one of these sins is thus an erroneous ethical position that must be rejected. 14 At around the same time (ca. 1396), by the request of Hasdai Crescas, Profayt Duran of Perpignan wrote his polemical work Kelimmat ha-goyyim [Reproach of the Gentiles], in which he developed and enhanced the methods of Jewish anti-Christian polemic. Duran focused primarily on the New Testament, distinguishing between the original Christianity of Jesus—which he viewed as a kind of misguided Jewish pietism—and the Christianity of his disciples and post-Constantinian theology, which was intentionally created as a new religion, with no basis in Scripture. 15 In this context, Duran saw fit to mention, albeit marginally, the ethical method of the deadly sins which he lists in order: pride, avarice, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth. Unlike Crescas, he did not attempt to undermine the method itself but rather to juxtapose it with the seven acts of mercy (opera misericordiae), noting in the end that such methods include a great deal of pointless nonsense. 16 14 See Hasdai Crescas, The Refutation of the Christian Principles 9, trans. Daniel J. Lasker (Albany, 1992), 73–74 (modified): “I say further: Since the intention of the divine law is the guidance of people to bring them to success, then the law which easily guides them to perfection is more fully perfect. Since achieving perfection by means of this new belief [Christianity] is more difficult, it is, therefore, not perfect. This is clear because it posits that natural actions are mortal sins and reasons for the excision of the soul; [these are] actions which are the custom of most people, the daily escape from which would be quite difficult for most of the world, such as anger and gluttony and sloth. For one such sin a man will be lost eternally. This is the worst and most reprehensible thing that could happen to someone.” See also ibid., 126 n.55, in which Lasker explains that Crescas’s contention against Christian ethics—that their demands are so great as to make failure inevitable—is directed against Paul (e.g., Romans 1–8), who made a similar argument with regard to the demands of the Torah. On Crescas, see Ram BenShalom, “Hasdai Crescas: Portrait of a Leader at a Time of Crisis,” in The Jew in Medieval Iberia, ed. Jonathan Ray (Boston, 2012), 321–26. 15 Jeremy Cohen, “Profiat Duran’s The Reproach of the Gentiles and the Development of Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic,” in Shlomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume, ed. Daniel Carpi et al. (Tel Aviv, 1993), 78–79. See also Eleazar Gutwirth, “History and Apologetics in XVth c. Hispano-Jewish Thought,” Helmantica 35 (1984): 231–38; and Maud Kozodoy, “The Hebrew Bible as Weapon of Faith in Late Medieval Iberia: Irony, Satire, and Scriptural Allusion in Profiat Duran’s Al Tehi ka-Avotekha,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 18 (2011): 185–201. 16 Profiat Duran, Kelimmat ha-goyyim 9, in Kitvei pulmus le-Profiat Duran, Kelimmat hagoyyim ve-ʾIggeret ʾal tehi ka-ʾavotekha [The Polemical Writings of Profiat Duran: “The Reproach of the Gentiles” and “Be not like unto thy fathers”], ed. Frank E. Talmage (Jerusalem, 1981), 48: “They also have in their religion seven kinds of sin, which they call deadly sins; and these are pride, avarice, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy, sloth; and they call them deadly because they result in the death of the soul, which is the true death. They also have seven things that they call acts of mercy and grace . . . which they associate with the words of the Pentateuch and the Prophets and with the words of Jesus and the Apostles, both in their clarification and details DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 211 The deadly sins were prominent in the religious world of the late Middle Ages, penetrating all segments of society through a variety of literary genres, clerical and monastic sermons, exempla, poetry, and drama, as well as visual art of all kinds, particularly sculpture, both inside and outside the churches. 17 The sins exerted a considerable influence and thus found their way into Jewish-Christian dialogue and polemics as well. Despite negative polemical references to the deadly sins in Jewish sources, Jewish ethical literature also includes favorable assessments of the Christian conception of sin.18 The first Hebrew work based entirely on the model of the seven deadly sins and the four virtues was Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ [Fortifying strength], by Isaac Nathan, who lived in Arles in the fifteenth century. In this study, I will provide a preliminary review of Nathan’s treatise as well as an analysis of some of its literary and philosophical components. I will also address the historical and intellectual circumstances that gave rise to Nathan’s pioneering and even audacious work. A brief description of the author will be followed by an account of the work’s structure, method, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. Of all of the sins and virtues cited in the treatise, I will focus on the sin of pride, considered the foremost and gravest of the sins, and on the similarity of its representation in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ and the Christian conception of pride. I will then discuss the social criticism and relations between Jews and Christians reflected in a number of the sins in the treatise and the associated exempla—primarily avarice, which is sometimes compared to pride in its gravity and place in the hierarchy of the sins. I will conclude with a review of the possible sources of influence on the treatise and a discussion of the general ethical approach common to Jews and Christians that appears to be the central motive behind Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ. ISAAC NATHAN Isaac Nathan of Arles (d. 1470s) is best known as the author of the first Hebrew biblical concordance, Meʾir nativ [Illuminating a Path] (1437–47). He was, at the time, the most prominent leader of Provençal Jewry and scion of and in general terms. And they also have, among these things, much nonsense, too pointless to mention.” 17 See Jennifer O’Reilly, Studies in the Iconography of the Virtues and Vices in the Middle Ages (New York, 1988); and Colum Hourihane, ed., Virtue and Vice: The Personifications in the Index of Christian Art (Princeton, 2000), esp. 151–456. 18 See Jonathan Decter, “Em kol ḥai: Virtues and Vices in Benjamin ben 'Anav of Rome’s Masa' gei ḥizayon,” in Ot Letova: Essays in Honor of Professor Tova Rosen, ed. Eli Yassif et al. (Beer Sheva, 2012) [=Mikan 11; El Prezente 6 (2012)], 54–70. DISTRIBUTION 212 R. BEN-SHALOM an important dynasty—the Nathan family—the socio-cultural activities of which stretched from the thirteenth century to the late fifteenth century. Nathan was the wealthiest Jew in Arles, a drapier and financier with broad commercial interests, reminiscent of the activities of the Italian merchants at the papal court in Avignon, which greatly outstripped those of their Provençal counterparts. He also owned a significant amount of real estate. In the Arles land registry for the year 1437, for example, he is ranked thirteenth among landowners in general—following ten members of the nobility and two bourgeois anoblis. He was also an important social leader, serving as representative of the Jewish community of Arles in the supreme organization of the Jews of Provence, which decided how the burden of taxation should be divided. Nathan bore the title procurator of the Jewish communities of Provence, charged with the collection of taxes, and played a central role in the community’s leadership from 1420 to 1462, serving in the capacity of baylon, advisor and treasurer. 19 Nathan devoted much of his intellectual efforts to religious polemics against Christian missionary efforts and to the creation of tools to serve Jewish scholars who engaged in such debates. Foremost among these was his Hebrew concordance project, which he both funded and oversaw, for the benefit of Jewish representatives in religious disputations with Christians over Scripture. 20 He wrote three lost polemical works (Tokheḥat maṭʿeh [Reproof of a Deceiver], Mivṣar Yiṣḥaq [Fortress of Isaac], and ʾIggeret piqqurei R. Šemuel [The Heretical Epistle of Rabbi Samuel]—a reply to Alphonsus Bonihominis’s pseudepigraphical “bestseller,” published in 1339). Nathan also showed an interest in education and wrote a lost didactic work, Meʾah devarim [One Hundred Affirmations]. This aspect of his intellectual world is reflected in the preface to his concordance, in which he complains of his own inadequate biblical education and his desire to rectify that situation by means See Louis Stouff, “Isaac Nathan et les siens. Une famille juive d’Arles des XIVe et XVe siècles,” Provence Historique 37 (1987): 499–512, “Activités et professions dans une communauté juive de Provence au bas Moyen-Age, La Juiverie d’Arles 1400–1450,” in Minorités techniques et métiers, Actes de la table ronde du Groupement d’Intéret Scientifique, Sciences Humaines sur l’Aire Méditerranéenne, Abbaye de Sénanque, Octobre 1978 (Aix-en-Provence, 1980), 61, 64, 66, 69, 73, 77, and Arles à la fin du Moyen Age, 1 (Aix-en-Provence, 1986), 289, 309, 313–18, 334, 345, and 356; Danièle Iancu-Agou, “Une vente de livres hébreux à Arles en 1434. Tableau de l’élite juive arlésienne au milieu du XVe siècle,” Revue des études juives 146 (1987): 5–61; and Monique Wernham, La communauté juive de Salon-de-Provence d’après les actes notariés 1391–1435, Studies and Texts 82 (Toronto, 1987), 242–44. 20 See Ram Ben-Shalom, “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance of the Bible and Jewish Bible Study in the Fifteenth Century, in the Context of Jewish-Christian Polemics,” Aleph 11 (2011): 289–364. 19 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 213 of the concordance project. 21 Other short tracts by Nathan, on biblical subjects, have been preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library Reggio 21 (Neubauer 2232). The manuscript opens with Nathan’s ethical treatise Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, immediately followed by his preface to Meʾir nativ and twenty-one short tracts—mostly exegetical in nature but also including a small number of philosophical essays (similarly rooted in Scripture). 22 Isaac Nathan was also well known among the Jews of Spain for his contribution to the religious debate with Christians, as witnessed by the words of the exegete and philosopher Isaac Abravanel, one of the leaders of Castilian Jewry on the eve of expulsion (1492), who frequently cites one of Nathan’s works (probably Tokheḥat maṭʿeh) and calls him a “trustworthy advisor and master of his craft,” and “a master of grace.” 23 Among the Jews of Provence, Nathan was also known as Meʾor galuteinu [Light of our exile]—an honorific title given to few—in recognition of his extensive social and literary endeavors. 24 MEʾAMEṢ KO'AḤ: FIRST HEBREW WORK ON THE SEVEN SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES Nathan’s literary works include an ethical treatise (still in manuscript), called Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ. 25 Its date of completion is unknown, although it 21 See Ram Ben-Shalom, “Concerning the Question of the Author of the First Hebrew Concordance Meir Nativ” [Hebrew], Kiryath Sepher 64 (1992–93): 754–60, “The Disputation of Tortosa, Vincent Ferrer and the Problem of the Conversos According to the Testimony of Isaac Nathan” [Hebrew], Zion 56 (1991): 21–54, “A Minority Looks at the Mendicants: Isaac Nathan the Jew and Thomas Connecte the Carmelite,” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004): 213–43, and “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance,” 308–9. 22 This manuscript has never been the subject of scholarly attention, except for brief remarks made by Isaac Samuel Reggio, Isaac Samuel Reggio’s Letters to One of His Addressees [Hebrew] (Vienna, 1834), first notebook, letter 11, p. 76. The titles of the twenty-one studies included in the manuscript were listed in Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1886), 1146. See also Ernest Renan, Les écrivains juifs français du XIVe siécle (Paris, 1893), 237; and Ram Ben-Shalom, “Isaac Nathan of Arles’ Series of Studies on the Bible: The Phenomenon of Return to Scripture among the Jews of Provence and Spain in the Fifteenth Century” [Hebrew] (forthcoming). 23 Isaac Abravanel, Yešuʿot mešiḥo [Salvations of His Annointed], 11, 12 (Koenigsberg, 1861), 62b–63a and 65a. 24 Ben-Shalom, “Concerning the Question of the Author,” 758–59. 25 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ is preserved in three manuscripts: 1) Oxford, Bodleian Library Reggio 21 (Neubauer 2232), fols. 1–74, copied—together with other works by Isaac Nathan that follow—by Bonastruk Avigdor in the year 5250 (1489/90). Bonastruk was a member of the Avidgor family of Arles, which (like the Nathan family) be- DISTRIBUTION 214 R. BEN-SHALOM certainly postdates 1433—the year in which the Carmelite monk Thomas Conecte was burned at the stake in Rome (noted in the work itself)—and presumably well after the event, probably in the latter half of the fifteenth century. 26 Nathan explained his decision to write Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ as stemming from the lack of any comprehensive Jewish ethical work on the subject of the positive and negative traits of the soul: It is my intention in this treatise to elucidate the qualities of the soul and conducts—some of which are called qualities, perfections, and virtues, while the evil ones are called vices. For we have not seen among the words of the ancients that have come down to us any comprehensive treatise on this matter, and they have hardly addressed it at all, although it is a great principle in human life. . . . And if the ancients made any remarks or intimations, these are scattered throughout their works so that they offer no benefit, unless gathered and compiled in a single work. . . . And the extensive treatment of these things by the Sage [Aristotle] in the Ethics is not easily understood by the reader, for it is closed and sealed [to all] but those who are familiar with his works and accustomed to the depths of his inquiries and proofs (Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, Moscow, Russian State Library MS Guenzburg, no. 113/1, fols. 1v–2r; see appendix, text 1). longed to the town’s Jewish leadership. Several members of the Avigdor family, such as Abraham Avigdor, author of Sefer segulat melakhim [The Book of Virtue of Kings], written in 1377, were active philosophers with a special interest in translating medical texts from Latin into Hebrew. Don Astruk Avigdor is mentioned along with Don Crescas Nathan (the father of Isaac Nathan) as a member of the Jewish law court in Arles during the years 1385–87. See Ram BenShalom, “Community and Institutional Life in the Jewish Community of Arles: Responsum Isaac Bar Sheshet 266 as an Historical Source” [Hebrew], Michael 12 (1990): 15, 18, 26. The manuscript was part of the private collection of the liberal and critical biblical commentator and translator of the Bible into Italian, Isaac Samuel Reggio (1784–1855). Reggio’s collection was sold to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, in 1853. The manuscript is largely damaged and illegible (especially fols. 19–76). 2) Moscow, Russian State Library MS Guenzburg, no. 113/1, fols. 1–100, copied in Italy, in the fifteenth or sixteenth century (according to the catalogue of the Israel National Library Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, in Jerusalem). The manuscript was part of the collection of Baron David Günzburg (1857–1910). 3) New York, Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary MS Adler 2504, pp. 1–155. This is a later manuscript that—to judge from my sample comparison—is based on the Reggio manuscript; it contains numerous copyist’s errors and is missing a number of passages (probably those the copyist could not read). In light of the damaged stated of the Reggio manuscript and the absence of a critical edition (which I intend to prepare), I have relied on the Guenzburg manuscript. All references to the text are by folio in this manuscript. 26 See Ben-Shalom, “Minority” (n. 21 above), esp. 230 n.72. In addition to the reasons cited in the article in favor of a later date of completion, the biblical references in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ seem to indicate use of an index of verses—probably Nathan’s own concordance, Meʾir nativ, completed in 1447. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 215 Nathan, here, gives three reasons for his decision to engage in ethics: 1) the lack of a comprehensive work on the subject in Jewish ethical literature; 2) to the extent that Jewish scholars did address this aspect of ethics, their words are scattered over many different works; 3) Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is accessible only to philosophers familiar with his writings. Nathan believed that the lack of treatment of this subject by Jewish scholars stemmed primarily from shortcomings of the Hebrew language in the realm of ethical virtues. According to Aristotle, an ethical virtue is the mean between a state of excess and a state of deficiency. The Hebrew language, however, often lacks names for the extremes and sometimes for the intermediate virtues. It is also difficult to explain the essence of the virtues, as the name of an ethical failing may appear in Scripture in a positive sense, or an ethical virtue may appear in a negative sense. Envy and pride, for example, are portrayed at times in the Bible as positive qualities, while courage sometimes denotes a reprehensible trait. Nathan thus sought, in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, to remove such obstacles and to offer renewed definitions of the virtues and the vices. 27 Isaac Nathan was well acquainted with Christian theological literature, 28 and he knowingly chose the model of the seven deadly sins and the four virtues as the basic structure of his treatise. He was also aware of the audacity and innovation in employing a Christian method in a work aimed at a Jewish readership, but he argued that there is no reason to reject a particular model simply because it is Christian. He believed that if there is something of value in Christian literature, it is incumbent upon Jews to adopt it: I therefore decided to compose a separate treatise, in which I will first include all of the seven universal traits that drive those who possess them to eternal destruction [and are] called the seven deadly sins by adherents of the new faith [i.e., Christianity]. And they constitute universal categories encompassing all of the warnings of the Torah. For although this division does not appear in any of our books, we need not refrain from following others in that which we deem fitting and right. . . . Therefore, inasmuch as the division into these categories is right and proper, it is good to follow them, for universal speculation is the best [lit. self: benafšo] choice, for it is from these failings that all sins arise, and in this [speculation will be demonstrated] their immediate causes, and a treatise on these [failings] 27 Isaac Nathan, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fol. 2r–v. Nathan gives the example of 1 Kings 19:10, 14, “I have been very jealous for the Lord,” where Elijah’s jealousy is presented as a positive quality; and the example of Ps. 47:5, “the pride of Jacob, whom he loves. Selah,” which presents pride as a positive quality. With regard to courage (gevurah), which sometimes appears as a negative quality, the following examples are cited: Jer. 23:10, “and their might is not right”; Ps. 78:65 “like a hero recovering from wine”; and Ps. 52:3, “why do you boast of evil, hero?” 28 On Nathan’s familiarity with Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, see Ben-Shalom, “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance,” 320–26, and pp. 223 and 250 below. DISTRIBUTION 216 R. BEN-SHALOM will [also] reveal their counterparts and opposites. The structure of the treatise will then follow the four primary categories of virtues that also serve as universal types for all of the commandments of the Torah. They [the four primary categories] comprise accomplishments and causes, and they are used to describe the human perfection attained by those who possess them . . . and with them their counterparts and opposites will [also] be revealed (fols. 2v–3r; see appendix, text 2). Nathan accepts the two main characteristics of the Christian method previously rejected by Hasdai Crescas: the capital nature of the sins (“universal categories”)—that is their great importance and role as the root and cause of other sins—and their deadly, unforgivable essence (“eternal destruction”). Until the fifteenth century, Christian theology made a clear distinction between mortal and capital sins. The boundaries between the two concepts then became blurred.29 It is thus not surprising that they are combined in Nathan’s work. In his treatment of each sin, Nathan reiterates the idea of deadliness, thereby demonstrating his identification with the Christian idea of the destruction of the soul as a result of sin—beyond his acceptance of the general method of the sins as a convenient literary tool for ethical instruction. This is evident, for example, in his treatment of the sin of envy: And the Sage [Aristotle] defined it as distress that a person may feel at the success and good fortune of another. He further sustained that the distress of the envier pertains not to the desire that he alone have that good or that it depart from his rival [lit. the person who is the object of the envy] and become his own, but only that it depart from the other, that is to say, the rival. If so, this is not the [same] envy that is cardinal to a number of categories of transgressions, for unless he desires those goods for himself, he will not be driven to sin to acquire them. The envy addressed in this treatise stipulates the opposite condition, and that is, as noted, that he desire those goods for himself, because he deems himself worthier of them [than his rival], and that is the jealousy that is one of the categories of transgressions and sins that bring eternal death to those who commit them (fol. 39r; see appendix, text 3). Nathan explains the nature of the envy that is one of the deadly sins, stressing that it is not the same as the envy defined by Aristotle. Contrary to the emotion described by Aristotle, the envy that leads the sinner’s soul to destruction longs to acquire the success of the other. And indeed, in order to illustrate the nature of this sin, Nathan cites an exemplum of envy over goods and property, among members of the Franciscan order (fols. 39r–40v). 30 His attribution of the sin of envy specifically to the mendicants is not surprising, as an icono29 See Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, 43–44, 157. On this exemplum, see Ram Ben-Shalom, “Jews and Friars: Isaac Nathan’s Views on the Mendicants” [Hebrew], Zmanim 100 (2007): 46–47. 30 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 217 graphic representation of envy from the late fourteenth century in France (1380) included the figure of a monk holding a falcon (symbol of nobility) or a money bag. The association of envy with material greed (avaritia) was also a frequent motif in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and discussions of envy among monks and between the various monastic orders abound in the literature of the period.31 STRUCTURE, LITERARY METHOD, AND PLACE OF MEʾAMEṢ KO'AḤ IN JEWISH THOUGHT OF THE TIME Literary works based on the seven (or eight) sins have long been considered part of an exclusively Christian genre, entirely absent from Jewish literature, but Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ changes this theory. Nathan’s ethical treatise is extensive, numbering two hundred pages in manuscript (fols. 1v–100r). It is divided into a long introduction, three sections, and a short conclusion, and each of the three sections comprises subsections, called “gates” and “chapters.” At the beginning of the introduction, Nathan explains his choice of the name Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ as follows: “For its benefit lies not in correcting that which bad temperament has spoiled in him from the beginning, to remove his foolishness from him, but rather in that which the mind has prepared him to internalize, to receive virtues. . . . And this shall be a sustainer before him, a [companion] to lift him up” (fol. 1v). The work was thus not intended to instill good qualities but to fortify (leʾameṣ) those already present, with the word ko'aḥ [strength] understood as man’s natural qualities. Nathan subscribed to the Aristotelian view that not all audiences will benefit from hearing lectures in politics (including ethics), but only those who know how to “arrange their desires, and act, in accordance with reason.” 32 To this end, the treatise presents the views of the ethical philosophers (primarily Aristotle), augmented by passages from the Bible, and the Talmudic and Midrashic literature. 33 Later in the introduction, Nathan also explains why he chose to write in popular style: 31 See Mireille Vincent-Cassy, “Quelques reflexions sur l’envie et la jalousie en France au XIV siècle,” in Étude sur l’histoire de la pauvreté 2, ed. Michel Mollat (Paris, 1974), 487–503, esp. 500–502, and “L’envie au Moyen Age,” Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 35 (1980): 264–65; Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 198 n.32; and Ben-Shalom, “Jews and Friars,” 36–47. 32 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.3 (ed. Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe [Oxford, 2002], 96–97). 33 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fol. 100r. See pp. 230–31 below. DISTRIBUTION 218 R. BEN-SHALOM As it is our intention to straighten crooked thoughts and [those] prone to the vices, we must not burden them with profound speculation, for it will suffice them to listen carefully to that matter which parallels their own vices and accept and attend and desist, without being compelled to engage in extensive speculation and contemplation. It is therefore essential to present these matters with the greatest clarity and breadth; sweet words in which they may delight, deriving pleasure and enjoyment from reading them (fol. 2r; see appendix, text 4). In this context, the author compares the Torah and philosophical ethical literature—principally Aristotle’s Ethics. Nathan determines that there are no positive or negative precepts in Scripture (the Pentateuch and Prophets) that concern virtues and vices in general but only their application in specific cases. There is, for example, no general commandment to be generous or to refrain from avarice, while there are a number of precepts pertaining to specific acts of generosity, tithes, and charity, and an injunction not to close your hand before a pauper. Conversely, Aristotle’s ethical prescriptions (Nicomachean Ethics 5) are entirely general, such as the general injunction against injustice or the exhortation to honesty. Nathan cites four reasons for the difference between the biblical approach to ethics and that of the Greek philosophers: 1. The Bible addresses the masses rather than a select group of scholars. The masses are incapable of grasping universal truths and thus need to be taught how to act in specific cases. 2. Ethical virtues pertain to the spiritual-intellectual realm, hidden from the public eye. Since these are matters of the heart, transgressors can neither be admonished nor punished. The Bible therefore preferred to guide people to the universal truths by means of stories and legends rather than by commandments and injunctions. 3. What constitutes virtuous behavior in one person, time, or place may represent something else entirely in another. Generosity in times of scarcity, for example, is unlike generosity in times of plenty, and the generosity of one who is far from wealthy might be considered avarice in a wealthier or more powerful individual. 4. Ethical virtues are acquired through day-to-day experience. The Bible therefore preferred to mandate certain specific acts within the realm of ethics while prohibiting others, thereby attaining the ultimate goal of instilling such virtues in a cumulative fashion (fols. 3v–4v). In Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, Nathan chose to follow the biblical method, as he understood it, of appealing to the masses through stories and legends. He thus makes extensive use of exempla as a didactic tool and uses them, inter alia, to illustrate his views regarding universal truths and their particular applications: The story is told of a hypocritical orator who was praised and appointed advisor to the king. And the day came that he stood among the other councilors to consider the king’s demands and the conducting of his realm and wars. His opinion was asked, and he replied that he should choose for him [the king] and offer him such [courses of action] as are helpful and profitable for the general esteem, honor, DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 219 glory, and majesty of the crown, justice and rectitude among men of state and belief in the duration [of the covenant] and strengthening the covenant between the county (maḥoz) and its people and the king [that has existed] from days of old and from ancient years; and [also] fortifying the strength and courage [of the people] against enemies, and perpetuating peace for the entire district (pelekh) and its people. And regarding the specific matter to which the demand pertained, he said absolutely nothing, for he believed that the answer to that demand could be found within his general words, and that these constituted sufficient counsel, and [when he finished] he was near to thinking that he was greater than all present. And the king banished him from the ranks of his counsel, because he did not speak rightly as did the other councilors, who addressed the specific questions in all their details (fol. 3v; see appendix, text 5). The exemplum describes a typical medieval court, to which the king would summon his advisors to hear their counsel in matters of politics and war. Providing counsel was one of the elements of the vassal’s oath of fealty to his lord, and many feudal customs persisted, in various forms, into the fifteenth century. By that time the knights had been supplanted by a professional class of court bureaucrats, who vied with one another for the king’s favor, as illustrated by the hypocritical advisor’s belief that his counsel had been greater than that of the other advisors. The king in the exemplum, however, was not interested in general, rhetorical discussions of universal truths such as justice, rectitude, and peace, but in the minute details he required at that moment in order to conduct his policies. The hypocritical advisor is thus banished from the court, thereby demonstrating the superiority of the biblical over the philosophical method.34 Exempla of this kind are scattered throughout Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, and the introduction alone includes seven such stories. Some begin with common opening formulas, such as “It was told” or “our fathers recounted to us”; these include folk tales and perhaps even a story written by Nathan himself. Others begin with phrases like “the fabulists said” or “the orators among the ethical 34 See Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, trans. L. A. Manyon (London, 1961), 221–24; and Johann Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzch (Chicago, 1996), 12, 45–46. The word maḥoz [county], used by Nathan, refers to the area of the king’s jurisdiction, as evidenced by another passage in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ (fol. 91v): “According to general usage or the usage of the county (maḥoz), which the Rabbis have called the law of the realm, that is, the laws of the county, and they did not say the laws of the king.” The word pelekh [district] refers to the same area of jurisdiction, and we can perhaps surmise that the type of jurisdiction in question corresponds to Provence, as ruled by King René of the House of Anjou. On the possible ties between Isaac Nathan and King René, see Ram BenShalom, “Christian Art in the Intellectual World of Jewish Scholars in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: The Case of Issac Nathan from Arles” (forthcoming). DISTRIBUTION 220 R. BEN-SHALOM philosophers allegorized”; these comprise classic fables (e.g., those of Aesop) and other stories that enjoyed popularity in the Middle Ages. A further group of exempla employs expressions such as “my eyes saw,” “we saw,” “this our ears heard and our eyes saw,” or “as they do,” citing examples from recent Christian and Jewish history or contemporary Jewish communal life. The exempla also include references to various social phenomena—pertaining to the lives and sermons of the mendicants, 35 for example—as well as criticism of improper Jewish behavior, stories from the Bible, tales of extraordinary individuals, and illustrations from the natural world.36 A comparison of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ and other Jewish ethical works shows that Nathan’s treatise was not unusual in its use of exempla to illustrate or reinforce ethical ideas. This literary phenomenon can be observed in the first Hebrew ethical works, dating from the Geonic period, such as Midraš ʿAśeret ha-Dibrot [Midrash of the Ten Commandments] and ʾAlfa beta de-Ben Sira [Alphabet of Ben Sira], and in the classic ethical treatises written in Spain and Germany, such as Bahya Ibn Paquda’s Ḥovot ha-levavot [Duties of the Heart] and Sefer ḥasidim [Book of the Pious], and its origins can be traced to the Talmudic and Midrashic literature.37 Despite these precedents, the influence of contemporary literature on Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ is evident. The opening phrases employed by Nathan recall those encountered in Christian exempla (for example, “fertur” or “legitur” when citing an external source and “credo me 35 See Ram Ben-Shalom, “Jews and Friars: Isaac Nathan’s Views on the Mendicants” [Hebrew], Zmanim 100 (2007): 36–47. 36 In earlier studies I have analyzed a number of historical exempla in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, which include references to the Tortosa Disputation, Joshua ha-Lorki (Jeronimo de Santa Fe), and the missionary activity of Vincent Ferrer; events surrounding the Great Schism, and especially the election and figure of Benedict XIII; relations between Benedict XIII and Vincent Ferrer; the itinerant preaching of the reformer Thomas Conecte in northwestern Europe, and his burning at the stake in Rome; as well as episodes from ancient history. See Ram Ben-Shalom, “Disputation of Tortosa” (n. 21 above), “The Social Context of Apostasy among FifteenthCentury Spanish Jewry,” in Rethinking European Jewish History, ed. Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman (London, 2008), 173–98, “Exempla and Popes: Church Imagery in the Spanish and Provencal Jewish Mentalité,” Convivencia de culturas y sociedades mediterráneas. V Encuentros Judaicos de Tudela (Pamplona, 2004), 177–90, “Exempla and Historical Consciousness in the Middle Ages: The case of Philip, Alexander the Great and the Conquest of Athens” [Hebrew], in He-avar u-me'ever lo: iyunim be-historia u-vefilosofia shay le-Elazar Weinryb [The Past and Beyond: Studies in History and Philosophy Presented to Elazar Weinryb], ed. Amir Horowitz et al. (Raanana, 2006), 99–116, and Mul tarbut noṣrit: Toda'ah historit vedimuyei avar bekerev yehudei Sefarad u-Perovans biymei habeinayim [Facing Christian Culture: Historical Consciousness and Images of the Past among the Jews of Spain and Southern France during the Middle Ages] (Jerusalem, 2006), 55, 119–24, and 241–35. 37 See Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, trans. Jacqueline S. Teitelbaum (Bloomington, 1999), 99, 120–32, and 283–97. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 221 audivisse” or “ut ego vidi” when the events described were witnessed by the author). 38 Furthermore, the subjects of the exempla in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ are very similar to those commonly found in Christian exempla literature, such as the collected sermons of Vincent Ferrer. 39 Nathan may also have been influenced by works of pastoral theology and instruction on the seven deadly sins and the four virtues written from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, which included exempla from religious and secular history, lives of saints, legends, examples from the natural world, and personal narratives. One such work is the Summa de viciis et virtutibus, by the Dominican friar Guillaume Peraud (second quarter of the thirteenth century), which includes some two hundred exempla, was widely known, and served preachers and moralists as a source of inspiration. Another is the encyclopedic Somme le Roi (1279) of Lorens, confessor to King Philip III (the Bold) of France, which addresses the subject of the seven deadly sins and the virtues and was translated from Latin into many vernacular languages, including Provençal. 40 The Breviloquium de virtutibus (completed 1265–75) written by the Franciscan John of Wales may also have served as a model of a treatise on the virtues that incorporates exempla from many different and varied sources. 41 Although the exempla in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ differ from those in the Breviloquium, the two works draw upon the same classical and medieval sources. The influence of manuals for the education of princes is also apparent in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ—in the story of the hypocritical advisor, which demonstrates 38 See, e.g., Jean Thiébaut Welter, L’exemplum dans la literature religieuse et didactique du Moyen Age (Geneva, 1973), 81. 39 See ibid., 411–12; and Pedro Manuel Cátedra García, Sermón, sociedad y literatura en la Edad Media. San Vicente Ferrer en Castilla (1411–1412): estudio bibliográfico, literario y edición de los textos inéditos (Valladolid, 1994). 40 See W. Nelson Francis, ed., The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth Century English Translation of the “Somme le Roi” of Lorens d’Orléans, Early English Text Society, o.s. 217 (London, 1942); and Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 86–87 and 141–42. 41 See Rosemond Tuve, “Notes on the Virtues and Vices,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26 (1963): 264–67; Jenny Swanson, John of Wales: A Study of the Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar (Cambridge, 1989), 41–62; and Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 83 and 131–32. The Breviloquium combines two different genres: works on the virtues and manuals for princes. It is based on the four cardinal virtues, represented metaphorically as pillars supporting the throne. The virtues are divided, analyzed, and accompanied by dozens of stories and exempla, designed for the instruction of rulers. The exempla draw upon scriptural, classical, patristic, and medieval sources. John’s treatise was widely read (there are over 150 extant Latin manuscripts) and translated into ten different languages. A number of selective versions were produced in French over the course of the fifteenth century. On other collections of exempla based on the sins and the virtues, see Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 82–84. See also pp. 252–53 below. DISTRIBUTION 222 R. BEN-SHALOM the importance of a ruler taking an interest in the specific details of government, and in other exempla, such as the story of Thomas Conecte, in which Nathan expresses approval of the pope’s decision to burn the Carmelite monk at the stake, ending the exemplum with the admonition, “And he whom God has endowed with knowledge and understanding among the kings of the land and its rulers, should take note of mendicants’ actions before listening to their words, for their mouths are smoother than butter” (fol. 75r). It is safe to assume that Nathan had no illusions that Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ would be read by Christian rulers; his words were directed primarily at future Jewish communal leaders—leaders who were likely to encounter phenomena similar to that of Thomas Conecte, as he understood it. 42 It is also safe to assume, however, that Nathan was familiar with the didactic genre of manuals for princes and was inspired by it, as evidenced by further passages in his treatise in which he addresses various aspects of court life. He writes, for example, “And that is why it is the rule among kings to seek the most beautiful, majestic, and dignified maidens, that their desire for them might be strong, lest they look at others and have children by them with lust” (fol. 28v). Nathan here distinguishes between the marriage customs among commoners and among kings. He cites an ethical-practical justification for the royal practice of seeking an especially beautiful consort, contrary to his advice to ordinary men, in order to safeguard the integrity of the dynasty. In a discussion of the negative consequences of impatience, he writes, “And it is a mistake . . . for which vice many have suffered, and with it they attain greatness and stand before kings, [but] they are rash, quarrelsome, discontented, angry, and anger others. They respond before hearing, say that they have understood what they wished before the other has finished speaking, and consider this wisdom, but it is bound folly and utter stupidity” (fol. 65r). Nathan thus believed that impatience may be useful in attaining important positions but at the decisive moment, when one is standing before the king, it will bring nothing but failure and embarrassment. Note that these examples from court life do not belong to the genre of royal allegories, found, inter alia, in the Talmud and Midrash, but reveal the influence of medieval aristocratic mentality. It has not been possible to identify a single Christian work that served as a model for Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ among the many books written on the subject of the 42 See Ben-Shalom, “Minority” (n. 21 above), 234–35. Isaac Nathan takes a clear position in the exemplum regarding the appropriate way in which to deal with rebellion: the pope’s a priori suspicion of the Carmelite, the monk’s thorough examination by the cardinals, and his punishment provide the correct model to be followed by Jewish leaders, and these are, in Nathan’s opinion, the appropriate means to adopt should such cases of messianic frenzy arise in the future. See pp. 244–45 below, on the exemplum of the king of France. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 223 deadly sins and the virtues, in Latin and in the vernacular.43 In the introduction to his concordance, Meʾir nativ, Nathan recounts his experiences as a young student, when Christian scholars sought to engage him in religious debate. He notes two types of Christian polemicists he would encounter: scholastics who employed philosophy and logic to prove the truth of the Christian faith, and Franciscans who used prefiguration and allegory in their sermons. Among their books he discovered the Latin concordance of the Bible, recognized its value, and decided to undertake a similar enterprise in Hebrew. 44 In his description, Nathan implies that he frequented a Christian library or libraries (the will of his mother, Venguessone Nathan, also attests to the presence of Latin works in her library), 45 and that he was familiar with Christian literature—particularly that produced by the Dominicans and the Franciscans for a broad, urban readership. 46 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ thus followed a literary method similar to that employed in the mendicant literature on the sins and the virtues. But Nathan’s choice of a light, popular style (as opposed to pure philosophical speculation), which combines philosophy—Aristotle in particular—with biblical and Rabbinic literature, was part of a broader trend in Jewish thought in Spain and Provence, sensitive to the intellectual and social needs of members of that generation. Nathan’s intensive use of Aristotle’s Ethics (including dozens of references) places Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ within the Jewish intellectual current that was greatly influenced by the Ethics. Meir Alguades, Castilian chief rabbi and court physician, translated the Nicomachean Ethics from Latin to Hebrew (completed ca. 1400; the Latin version had been translated from the Greek in the thirteenth century). In his Prologue to the Ethics, Alguades engages in open and lively intellectual discourse with Christian culture, enthusiastically noting, beyond his Latin studies, the Christian commentaries on philosophy in general and on the Ethics in particular that he had encountered in the course of his contacts with Christians—to which he attributed his familiarity with Aristotle’s treatise. Alguades also stresses his philosophical training with Christian teachers and credits the work of a Christian commentator with having significantly contributed to his understanding of Aristotle’s difficult philosophy of ethics. 47 His Hebrew translation played an important role in the 43 See Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 21–53. See Ben-Shalom, “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance,” 297–300. 45 Iancu-Agou, “Une vente” (n. 19 above), 46. 46 See Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 67 and 134. 47 Meir Alguades, Prologue to Sefer ha-middot [Book of Ethics], included in Lawrence V. Berman, “The Latin-to-Hebrew Translation of the Nicomachean Ethics” [Hebrew], in Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume, 1, ed. Moshe Idel, Warren Harvey and Eliezer Schweid, Jerusalem 44 DISTRIBUTION 224 R. BEN-SHALOM dissemination of Aristotelian ethics among the Jews of Spain in the fifteenth century. Some nineteen commentaries (still in manuscript) were written on Alguades’ translation of the Ethics over the course of the century, and numerous references to the translation appear in Jewish philosophical, exegetical, and homiletical works of the period. 48 Some of the commentaries—like the one completed in 1481/2 at the yeshivah of Shem Tov ben Joseph Ibn Shem Tov, in Segovia—were composed at the yeshivot, where the work was studied. 49 The phenomenon of Jewish interest in the Ethics, in Castile and Aragon, was also probably influenced by the general intellectual atmosphere in the Iberian Peninsula, which saw a growing interest in Aristotelian ethical thought, sustained by works in Latin as well as Catalan and Castilian translations. 50 Studies in Jewish Thought 7 (1988), 154–64. Berman (ibid., 149) notes a number of places in which Alguades made use of Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on the Ethics. Since many commentaries on the Ethics were written over the course of the fourteenth century, however, and most are still in manuscript, it is as yet impossible to determine the specific work used by Alguades. See also Jean-Pierre Rothschild, “Du latin à l’hébreu: quelques problèmes posés par des traductions médiévales,” in Rashi 1040–1990: Hommage à Ephraim E. Urbach, ed. Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (Paris, 1993), 697–98 n.6. 48 See Jean-Pierre Rothschild, “Les philosophes juifs d’Espagne au XVe siècle. L’Ethique à Nicomaque et le projet philosophique de Joseph Ibn Shem Tob (étude préparatoire),” in Pensamiento medieval hispano. Homenaje a Horacio Santiago Otero, 2, ed. José Maria Soto Rabanos (Madrid, 1998), 1289–1316. Such scholars include Joseph Albo, Zerahyah ha-Levi, Moses Arragel, Shem Tov ben Joseph Ibn Shem Tov, Abraham Shalom, Joel Ibn Shuaib, Joseph Hayyun, and Isaac Abravanel. The courtier and philosopher Joseph ben Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov, who explored the theological significance of the Nicomachean Ethics in his important and influential work Kevod ʾElohim [Glory of God] and further addressed the Ethics in his ʿ Ein ha-qore [Eye of the Reader], also composed a lengthy commentary on Sefer hamiddot. The homilist and exegete Isaac Arama (Castile and Aragon, ca. 1420–1494), who, like Alguades in his prologue, compared the Torah and Aristotelian ethics, finding no contradiction between the two. On the contrary, Arama believed that Aristotle provided definitions, arguments, and methods lacking in the Torah and the Talmudic literature. His synagogue homilies, later published as a commentary on the Torah, ʾAqedat Yiṣḥaq [Binding of Isaac], includes numerous references to and commentaries on the Ethics and Aristotelian ethical method in general. See Bernard Septimus, “Yitzhaq Arama and Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the Expulsion, ed. Yom Tov Assis and Yosef Kaplan (Jerusalem, 1999), esp. 11–13. 49 Rothschild, “Les philosophes,” 1299. Another Hebrew translation of the Nicomachean Ethics, by Baruch Ibn Ya'ish—based on the humanistic Latin translation by Leonardo Bruni and John Argyropoulos (completed 1417)—appeared in Spain in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Ibn Ya'ish also wrote a commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics (completed 1485/6). This work, characterized as a “Hebrew Thomist” commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, is in fact a collection of lectures delivered by Ibn Ya'ish and compiled by his student Samuel Altortos. The same socio-intellectual milieu also produced a supercommentary on the Nicomachean Ethics by an anonymous author. See Mauro Zonta, Hebrew Scholasticism in the Fifteenth Century: A History and Source Book, Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought 9 (Dordrecht, 2006), 116–18. 50 See A. R. D. Pagden, “The Diffusion of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy in Spain, ca. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 225 It is important to note that a tradition of study of the Nicomachean Ethics, primarily among the Jews of Provence, preceded Alguades’ Hebrew translation. In 1329, the philosopher Joseph Ibn Caspi compiled a synthesis of Samuel ben Yehudah’s Hebrew translation of Averroes’ (Ibn Rushd’s) Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, 51 whereby he sought to disseminate the principles contained in the Ethics, explaining them and transforming them into a practical guide. Ibn Caspi mentions the Ethics twice in his ethical treatise Sefer ha-musar [Book of Admonition] (1331), and introduces a curriculum, in which he recommends Torah and Talmud study until age fourteen, and mathematical and ethical studies until age sixteen, to include the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the sayings of the sages of the Talmud, Maimonides’ Šemonah peraqim [Eight Chapters—Introduction to the Tractate Avot], and Sefer ha-maddaʿ [Book of Knowledge], as well as Aristotle’s Ethics. It is to this end, Ibn Caspi asserts, that he wrote his synthesis of the Ethics. 52 Although the socio-practical curriculum he outlined remained a utopian ideal and was never actually adopted by the Jewish communities of Provence, it is indicative of the intellectual horizons of the stratum of Provençal Jewish scholars to which Isaac Nathan also belonged, and of the long-term intellectual project in which Isaac Nathan played a role, to render the Nicomachean Ethics a practical guide for everyday life. Beyond the popularity of the Nicomachean Ethics among the Jews of Provence, it is important to recall the enormous influence exerted by the Ethics on Christian thought, beginning in the thirteenth century, and the fact that it became a point of departure for every philosophical discussion of ethics.53 1400–ca. 1600,” Traditio 31 (1975): 287–313. An important juncture in this process was the heated intellectual debate between Alonso de Cartagena and Leonardo Bruni regarding Bruni’s method of translation. 51 In 1322 the philosopher Samuel ben Judah of Marseilles completed the second version of his Hebrew translation of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, subsequently revised by a series of anonymous Jewish authors, to correct mistranslations from Arabic, based on the Latin translation by Hermannus Alemannus (1240). In this context, it is worth noting the supercommentary on Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics—Šošan limmudim [Flower of Studies]—influenced by Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on the same work by Averroes. This supercommentary, written in Spain or Provence by an anonymous author, was already in use in philosophical circles around the year 1400 and later served Joseph ben Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov. See also the following note. 52 See Lawrence V. Berman, “Le commentaire moyen d’Ibn Rushd sur l’Ethique à Nicomaque dans la littérature hébraïque du moyen âge,” Archives juives 13.2 (1977): 19–28, esp. 24–27, and “A Manuscript Named “Šošan limmudim” and Its Relationship to a Provençal ‘Circle of Scholars’ ” [Hebrew], Kiryath Sepher 53 (1978): 368–72; and Zonta, Hebrew Scholasticism, 17. 53 See István P. Bejczy, “Introduction,” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries DISTRIBUTION 226 R. BEN-SHALOM The following is a brief overview of the content of the treatise and its exempla. In the introduction to Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ (fols. 1r–15v), Nathan presents the book’s contents, with the exception of the chapters of the third section. The introduction is then divided into two “gates.” The first gate (fols. 6v–10r) lists and explains sixteen things that cause men to succumb to and persist in sin. The second gate (fols. 10r–15v) lists and explains nineteen things that prevent men from being caught in the web of sin. The first section of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ (fols. 15v–42v) deals with the subject of the seven deadly sins, devoting a chapter to each: pride (15v–21r), avarice (21r–27r), lust (27r–31r), wrath (31v–35v), gluttony (35v–38v), envy (39r– 40v), and sloth (40v–42v). Each is divided into six articles, 54 as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Discussion of the Hebrew word for the sin in question. Definition of the sin according to the Aristotelian or other methods. Division of the sin and its categories according to Scripture and philosophy. The things that cause people (of poor ethics) to succumb to the sin. The positive and negative precepts in the Torah that pertain to the sin—including a subchapter on the subject of biblical figures guilty of that sin. 6. The things that prevent the sin, or should prevent it, and the natural and divine punishments that await the guilty. Some of the chapters also include a subchapter on remedies for the sin and advice on its prevention. The second section of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ (fols. 43r–63r) deals with the “four cardinal virtues”: prudence [lit. wisdom] (43r–49v), courage (49v–53v), justice (53v–57v), and temperance [lit. piousness] (57v–63r). Each chapter is divided into five articles like those in the first section. The four cardinal virtues, as found in Plato’s Republic, had been adopted by the Church Fathers, and, as in the case of the sins, Nathan’s list of virtues—which had no particular standing in Aristotle’s Ethics—derived from Christian thought. In the Ethics, wisdom is one of the five intellectual virtues, and truthfulness, courage and temperance are three of the eleven moral virtues. This is also the reason that some of the medieval Christian commentators on the Ethics completely ignored the method of the four virtues while others strove to reconcile the method with Aristotelian thought, at times conceding that Aristotle had not ascribed any particular importance to them. 55 The third section (fols. 63v–100r) deals with the various virtues that derive from the four cardinal virtues. The section is divided into four chapters: on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200–1500, ed. István P. Bejczy (Leiden, 2008), esp. 1–5. 54 This is how they are divided according to Nathan’s explanation in the introduction. Additional articles will be treated here as subchapters. 55 See István P. Bejczy, “The Cardinal Virtues in Medieval Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics, 1250–1350,” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages, ed. Bejczy, 199–222. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 227 1. (63v–88r) Virtues that derive from prudence: a) moderation; b) faith—including an extensive subchapter on perfidy; c) reason; d) the beauty and brevity of figurative rhetoric, as compared to convoluted rhetoric; e) joy versus sadness. 2. (88r–91r) Virtues that derive from courage: a) strength and bravery; b) cleanliness and purity; c) trust; d) munificence, greatness of soul, and love of honor (also part of the virtue of temperance); e) gentleness (also generosity), hope, and trust (in God). 3. (91r–92r) Virtues that derive from justice: safeguarding equality between people, and the ways of general (religious) and territorial (civil) law. 4. (92v–99r) Virtues that derive from temperance: a) love and friendliness, as opposed to enmity and hatred; b) greatness of soul and openhandedness; c) munificence; d) mercy. The introduction comprises six exempla. As noted earlier, the purpose of the exemplum of the king and the hypocritical advisor at the beginning of the introduction (fol. 3v, before the first gate) is to illustrate the literary-rhetorical method employed in the Bible, which focuses on details—contrary to the philosophical approach, which deals with general truths. The second exemplum (fol. 7r, in the first gate) is an Aesopian fable—the story of a shepherd who raised a wolf cub—meant to illustrate the third reason for man’s propensity to sin. 56 The third exemplum (fol. 7r–v) is meant to show how one learns bad habits from one’s immediate surroundings; the story juxtaposes two figures—the sailor and the merchant—representing different social milieus, each wondering at the strange habits of the other. The fourth exemplum (fols. 14r– 15r, in the second gate of the introduction) is cited in the context of the eighteenth reason that prevents man from descending into sin, and that is the wise man’s consciousness of the inferiority of matter and the desire of the body that leads man to stray from the just path; the exemplum, cited in full below, tells the story of two brothers, one wise and the other foolish, who come to a crossroads and must choose the right path.57 The fifth exemplum (fol. 15r–v), supporting the nineteenth reason, demonstrates how one sin leads to another, graver sin, with a tale of two thieves who stole a treasure and hid it in a field; the suspicions that each harbored toward the other eventually led to their murdering one another. The first part of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ begins with the sin of pride, which will be addressed at length below. Pride is at the opposite extreme of humility, while the virtue of modesty is the mean between the two extremes. The second sin, avarice, is defined primarily as improper appropriation and oppression; its opposite extreme is wastefulness, and its intermediate virtue is generosity. An 56 57 See p. 232 below. See pp. 256–58 below. DISTRIBUTION 228 R. BEN-SHALOM exemplum (fol. 25r–v, quoted in full below) 58 tells the story of an avaricious king of France, and also, in brief (fol. 26r), the legend of King Midas (portrayed as one of the monks), who asked God that everything he touched might be turned to gold, and whose greed eventually led him to seek death. The third sin, lust, is defined as a scripturally proscribed act of fornication, or sexual relations outside of marriage; the opposite extreme is celibacy and abstinence, and the mean is fear of sin. The fourth sin, wrath, is the opposite of indifference (which Nathan calls “absence of a sense of humiliation,” noting the lack of a more succinct term in Hebrew); 59 the intermediate virtue is mercy and compassion. An exemplum (fols. 34v–35r), serving to repudiate the custom of revenge, tells the story of a wise man of Damascus and his wife, whose daughter had been attacked and injured by violent men; the couple, in their wisdom, managed to prevent the neighbors from avenging their daughter. The fifth sin is gluttony, the opposite of which is self-denial and fasting (the author again notes the difficulty in finding an appropriate Hebrew term), and the mean is eating to satiety and no more. An exemplum (fol. 38r), a tale of the fabulists, tells the story of a rich man who raised a dog to guard his home, and a thief who tried, unsuccessfully, to tempt the dog with food. In the chapter on the sixth sin, envy, Nathan also notes the lack of biblical terms to denote the opposite extreme and intermediate virtue (although, contrary to the previous chapters, he offers no paraphrasis). An exemplum (fols. 39v–40r) tells the story of a Franciscan novice’s envy of his uncle and mentor. 60 The seventh sin, sloth, is the opposite of over-industriousness for the purpose of acquiring material possessions; the intermediate virtue is industriousness. The second part of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ begins with the first virtue, wisdom, which is the mean between over-cleverness and foolishness. An exemplum (fols. 48r–49r) is taken from the history of Athenian democracy, concerning the struggle against Philip (it should be Alexander), and the orator who (like Demosthenes) voiced his opposition to Macedonian domination in the Athenian assembly. 61 The second virtue, courage, is defined as the mean between 58 See pp. 244–45 below. Nathan attributes this term to the “the translators” [ha-maʿatiqim], probably alluding to Samuel ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Maimonides’ Haqdamah le-masekhet ʾAvot — Šemonah peraqim [Introduction to Avot—Eight Chapters] 4 (ed. Mordecai Dov Rabinowitz [Jerusalem, 1955/6], 167): “absence of a sense of shame and humiliation (heʿader hargašat ḥerpah va-vuz).” The comment on the lack of an appropriate Hebrew term also appears in Šemonah peraqim: “since these qualities have no known name in our language” (ibid.). The remark is described by Rabinowitz as ibn Tibbon’s note/apology. 60 See Ben-Shalom, “Jews and Friars” (n. 35 above), 45–47. 61 See Ben-Shalom, “Exempla and Historical Consciousness” (n. 36 above), passim. 59 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 229 recklessness and fear. An exemplum (fol. 52r–v) is taken from Sefer Yosifon [Book of Josippon] (a popular Hebrew version of Josephus’s Histories), which describes Herod’s victory over the Arabs and Cleopatra.62 The third virtue, justice, is described as the touchstone of all the virtues, by means of which the desired balance between extremes may be determined. It is suggested that justice pervades every aspect of ethics and that any departure from it is improper. For this reason, the author does not name the extremes but rather cites a number of examples of departure from the virtue of justice, such as theft and iniquity. This chapter includes an exemplum (fol. 55r–v) telling the story of a painter who painted the figure of Justice, blind and without arms. The story probably originated in Convertimini, a preacher’s manual by the English Dominican philosopher Robert Holkot (d. 1349), and subsequently appeared in a number of different works. The fourth virtue, temperance, lies between strict legalism and hypocritical self-righteousness. In this chapter, the author explains why temperance is not the mean between the two extremes but rather tends to one side. An exemplum (fols. 62r–63r) describes the dialogue between a Roman Republican leader and an anonymous philosopher who, by means of a story, teaches the leader the superiority of the quality of temperance. 63 The third part of the treatise addresses the qualities derived from each of the chief virtues, presenting pairs—the quality and its opposite—without suggesting an Aristotelian mean. Among the qualities mentioned, faith is given particular prominence, both in its religious sense and in the social sense of trust. An exemplum (fols. 70v–71r) tells the story of twelve goats and a butcher who manages to destroy the trust between the animals and slaughter them all, one by one. The opposite extreme of faith is perfidy, to which a long subchapter is devoted (fols. 74v–82r), including a number of exempla: concerning the Carmelite Thomas Conecte, executed for conspiracy against the Church (fol. 75r); 64 a hunter who kept birds in a cage and killed them while deceiving them with his words—representing the deceit of the mendicant preachers (fol. 75r–v); 65 the famous apostate Joshua ha-Lorki and his betrayal of his people, and the (baseless, racist) sermons of Vincent Ferrer against the forced converts (anusim) and against Judaism (fols. 76r–77r); a cardinal recently elected pope and his personal confessor, who reveals that the pope had 62 63 64 65 See Sefer Yosifon, ed. David Flusser (Jerusalem, 1981), vol. 1, p. 208. See Ben-Shalom, “Christian Art” (n. 34 above), and Mul tarbut (n. 36 above), 119–24. See Ben-Shalom, “Minority” (n. 21 above), passim. See ibid., 239. DISTRIBUTION 230 R. BEN-SHALOM betrayed the trust of the faithful and the Church (fols. 77v–78r); 66 and an old man whose neighbor discovered where he had hidden his treasure and stole it from him, and the ruse by which the old man recovered his money (fols. 79r– 80v). The length of this subchapter on perfidy and the many exempla it includes attest to the importance the author ascribed to this subject. A possible explanation for this lies in the stormy historical-political circumstances of the first half of the fifteenth century and the efforts of the Jewish minority to maintain its religious identity and social cohesion, threatened by certain elements in Christian majority society (such as the mendicants and apostates). In this context, the author may have felt that it was important to curtail the phenomenon of betrayal, which he viewed as threat to internal cohesion. Nathan’s adoption of the Christian method of the seven deadly sins in the first section was not simply a matter of form. He was thoroughly acquainted with the details of the method and arranged the sins in the order commonly used in Latin Christianity: superbia, avaritia, luxuria, ira, gula, invidia, acedia, reflected in the acrostic formula SALIGIA (as opposed to the Gregorian formula SIITAGL or VIITAGL, or Cassian’s GLAITAVS, according to which the sins can be explained by their grouping into spiritual and carnal sins). 67 Nathan offers no explanation of his choice of order, which he would appear to have adopted on the basis of the Latin works he had read or common usage in Provence at the time, nor does he attempt to “Judaize” the method, explaining only that he found it “fitting and right.” Nathan concludes Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ as follows: In truth, the division of the vices into seven deadly sins refers to seven categories, for the excellences and the desired and necessary goods themselves are three: the beneficial, the pleasant, and the beautiful. So the sin of lack of desire for all [three], that is, the preference of rest, gives rise to the sin of sloth. Excessive desire for the beneficial gives rise to avarice. Excessive desire for the pleasant, which pertains to two senses—taste and touch—gives rise to gluttony and lust. . . . Although excessive desire for the beautiful, when it is truly understood, meaning that it is the success [of the soul], does not give rise to sin or to vice, but to perfection. It is written, “You are most beautiful of the sons of man. . . . Therefore has God blessed you forever” [Ps. 45:3], that is to say that choosing the total good necessarily entails—by virtue of the principles of human nature—attaining the eternal good. For the sin [in excessive desiring of the beautiful] lies in man’s error 66 See Ben-Shalom, “Social Context of Apostasy” (n. 36 above), 187–91, “Disputation of Tortosa,” (n. 21 above), and “Exempla and Popes” (n. 36 above), passim. 67 See Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, 72 ( SIITAGL or VIITAGL—later SIIAAGL,with acedia replacing tristitia) and 86 (SALIGIA); Arthur Watson, “Saligia,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 10 (1947): 148–50; and Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 68 and 182–93. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 231 with regard to himself, in the belief that he possesses it and another lacks it, or one of these two [beliefs], and this gives rise to pride. And in all [of these things], sin results from the difficulty man experiences in [seeing] that another possesses these goods, and if he believes [the other’s] possession of them to be disproportionate, it will give rise to wrath, and if he does not discern whether it is proportionate or not, yet experiences difficulty in [seeing] that the other possesses these things, it will give rise to envy. And for the purposes of these facets and distinctions, the scholars of the laws (ḥakhmei ha-torot) and ethicists devised four cardinal categories of virtues and seven kinds of deadly sin, which include all of the vices. Or perhaps the vice of pride arises from this—that the beautiful is perceived as fame, that is honor, and the great desire for it gives rise to pride, and a fortiori when one experiences difficulty in [seeing] that another possesses it. And the cause of all seven is thus [either] the deficiency of desire for the goods, or the excessive desire for them, or the difficulty in [seeing] another possess them. And this is what I wished to assemble in this treatise of all that I have gleaned from the stalks and sheaves of the sayings of the ethical philosophers, that is consonant with Holy Scripture and the Sages [of the Talmud] (fol. 100r; see appendix, text 6). Isaac Nathan’s understanding of sin thus follows the Aristotelian view of vice as an excess of desire, or the complete lack of desire (in the case of sloth) for the three basic categories of value: the beneficial, the pleasant, and the beautiful. 68 Excessive desire for the beneficial leads to avarice; excessive desire for the pleasant—to gluttony and lust. This basic desire also leads to misconceptions regarding oneself and others—a perception of excellence in oneself (accompanied by the pursuit of fame and honor), and a disregard for the qualities of others, leads to pride. A perception of excellence in others leads to wrath and envy. THE FIRST DEADLY SIN AND ITS REMEDY: PRIDE, HUMILITY, AND MODESTY Isaac Nathan’s overall approach to sin is close to Christian views. He posits, at least rhetorically, the real existence of sin in the world, as a kind of independent entity. Human beings, with all of their ethical inadequacies and aberrations, help sin as it tries to ensnare them but may keep it at bay by seeking ethical perfection. 69 Here Nathan deviates from the Aristotelian approach, and his conception of sin differs from that of the Aristotelian Mai68 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3. Nathan, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fol. 13r: “And vigilance in this will render occasion to sin more difficult, for if a man is not aroused [to sins] of his own accord, approaching and seeking them out, they will not gain hold of him, a fortiori compel or entice him.” 69 DISTRIBUTION 232 R. BEN-SHALOM monides and his followers, who asserted that evil has no positive existence. Maimonides wrote that “man is not born, in his nature, from his very beginning, with either virtue or vice.” 70 Nathan, on the other hand, by means of an exemplum based on Aesop’s fables, tries to demonstrate that man is born with vices, due to the “nature concealed within the parents”: The fabulists said, “A shepherd once took a wolf cub immediately after it was born, and raised it in his herd. It [the wolf cub] was submissive until he [the shepherd] trusted it, and would leave it to guard the herd. One day the sheep were devoured, and the shepherd said to it, ‘Who told you that your father was a wolf?’ ” (fol. 7r; see appendix, text 7). In other words, according to Nathan, man is born good or evil. Nathan explains what we would call heredity as follows: “For the nature of the source must be present in that which derives from it.” In order to emphasize the fact that he is referring specifically to evil traits, he adds, “for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a viper” (ibid., citing Isa. 14:29). 71 He also states, at the beginning of the introduction to Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, that it was not his intention to “correct that which bad temperament has spoiled in him from the beginning, to remove his foolishness from him.” 72 It is reasonable to assume that here, too, he was influenced by Christian theology, which stressed the ontic existence of sin, and the preordained division between the good and the evil. 73 Christian influence is also evident in Nathan’s descriptions of the nature of some of the deadly sins. The sin of pride in the Middle Ages symbolized rebellion against God, excessive independence, improper individualism, and a threat to social harmony and order. The sin of pride featured prominently in Christian theology and homiletics, and many considered it first among the deadly sins (origo principalis morbis, according to Cassian), the worst of them all and the source of the other sins. 74 In the view of Gregory the Great, for example, pride is queen of all sins (regina superbia), which fully possesses the human heart, and consigns it to the other cardinal sins.75 70 Maimonides, Šemonah peraqim 4 (ed. Rabinowitz, 25). See also n. 14 above. Nathan’s concordance defines the word ṣefaʿ (viper) as “a type of snake that is fierce and cruel.” 72 See p. 217 above. 73 See Rom. 3:23–24; Col. 1:12–13; and H. R. Mackintosh, “Sin (Christian),” in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics 11 (New York, 1951), 538–44. 74 Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, 69–72, 355 n.6, and especially 75; Lester K. Little, “Pride Goes Before Avarice: Social Change and the Vices in Latin Christendom,” The American Historical Review 76 (1971): 18–20. 75 Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 31.45.87 (ed. M. Adriaen, CCL 143B [Turnhout, 1985], 1611): “Ipsa namque uitiorum regina superbia cum deuictum plene cor ceperit, mox illud septem principalibus uitiis, quasi quibusdam suis ducibus deuastandum tradit.” See Rhonda 71 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 233 Isaac Nathan describes pride in a similar vein: And on this vice are predicated all of the sins committed with malice and rebellion. . . . Under this vice we also find vengeance and hatred and many actions of cruelty, which are more directly related to the vice of wrath. And the Rabbis explained that it [pride] is the gravest of all the vices in human society, and it is unbearable to men and, by way of hyperbole, said that God Himself cannot tolerate its presence, a fortiori, to have any affinity with it. . . . And among all of the other vices, none more than pride leads those who possess it to heresy and destruction and alienation from God (fol. 18r; see appendix, text 8). 76 Like his Christian counterparts, Nathan ascribes ramifications to pride in terms of the relationship between man and God, and he evokes the very same concepts of rebellion and heresy that they do. He also notes the social consequences of pride—first and foremost cause of all the other sins—as a threat to social harmony and order. Pride was perceived as a grave sin in Jewish ethical thought—condemned by the Sages of the Talmud and Midrash, and widely addressed by medieval Jewish ethicists.77 Nevertheless, the creation of a single, comprehensive conception of pride, from the sayings and opinions scattered throughout the Bible and Talmudic, Midrashic, Rabbinic and philosophical literature—as the first and greatest of the sins, from which all other sins derive, and which ultimately leads to denial of God—is a process that closely parallels the Christian approach, and would appear to have arisen as a result of Christian influence, as Isaac Nathan explicitly states, And know that that is why they [i.e., the Christians] have placed it before all the vices, for it is chief among them and leads one who possess it to descend into other [vices] and to persist in them, especially when he does not notice this failing, but rather considers it perfection and greatness of spirit and becomes immersed in it, for he does not recognize it but deviates in the belief that he has chosen it for his perfection. And therefore, he who possesses it will find it difficult to be removed from its path and to remove himself from it, even if it is proven to him definitively, for he will try and stumble, act and fail, and will hear nothing else and will not desist (fol. 20v; see appendix, text 9). L. McDaniel, “Pride Goes Before a Fall: Aldhelm’s Practical Application of Gregorian and Cassianic Conceptions of Superbia and the Eight Principal Vices,” in The Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals, ed. Richard Newhauser (Leiden, 2007), 95–109, esp. 102–3. 76 See BT Soṭah 5a. 77 See, e.g., Jonah Gerondi, Šaʿarei tešuvah [Gates of Repentance] 1.27, 2.25, 3.34, 3.65, 3.175 [ed. 1505] (Jerusalem, 1978), 19–20, 50, 69, 79, 114–15; Yehiel ben Yekutiel ben Benjamin ha-Rofe, Maʿalot ha-middot [Steps of Ethical Values] 15 (Jerusalem, 1978), 197–201; Sefer ha-yašar [Book of the Righteous] (Jerusalem, 1978), 57–58, 86–87, 117, and 128–29; ʾOrḥot ṣaddiqim [Ways of the Righteous] 1 [ed. 1541] (Jerusalem, 1978), 14–25; and Israel Ibn Al-Nakawa, Menorat ha-maʾor [Candelabrum of Light], ed. Hyman Gerson Enelow (New York, 1932), 3:167–69 and 4:288–89. DISTRIBUTION 234 R. BEN-SHALOM Nathan’s treatment of each of the sins and virtues is, as noted, in keeping with the Aristotelian view that a virtue is the mean between excess and deficiency. He thus describes pride as follows: The name of this vice and trait in the Holy Tongue is gaʿavah [pride] . . . and its adjective is gevah lev [high of heart]. . . . Its complete opposite is šiflut [lowness— humility] and its adjective is, in our tongue and in theirs [the sages of the Talmud, of blessed memory], šefal ru'aḥ [humble of spirit]. . . . And the mean between the two extremes is calledʿ anavah [modesty] in our language and in the language of the Sages [of the Talmud], and it is the virtue that we consider perfection in those who possess it, and it is [considered] the best and most and excellent [virtue] everywhere it is mentioned in Holy Scripture (fols. 15v–16r; see appendix, text 10). Nathan followed in the footsteps of earlier Jewish ethicists, active in Muslim Spain, who had addressed the issue of pride. Similar binary terminology was employed as early as the eleventh century by Bahya Ibn Paquda and Solomon Ibn Gabirol, who identified pairs of opposite qualities in the human soul. In Ḥovot ha-levavot, Ibn Paquda contrasts pride and modesty, while Ibn Gabirol, in Tiqqun middot ha-nefeš [Improvement of the Soul’s Qualities], cites humility as the opposite of pride.78 Nathan identifies the intermediate quality of “greatness of soul” in Aristotle’s Ethics with the biblical ʿanavah [modesty]. 79 He thus adopted the position of Maimonides, who introduced the Aristotelian approach into Jewish thought, and viewed modesty as the intermediate quality between pride and humility. 80 In his conceptual definition of pride, however, Nathan presents his opinion on the Aristotelian approach and seeks to correct its wording: Definition: The Sage [Aristotle], in Rhetoric, book 2, defined [pride] as distress at a disproportionate good possessed by another. And he built great fortifications upon [this definition] and explained that the goods that distress the proud are those that come from without, rather than from will and choice—just as they are not distressed by the [other’s] possession of the latter [type of good]. And it is hard to understand this definition, for we find [the expression] “rejoice in pride” [Zeph. 3:11], [and also] since the proud, having contempt for the other, do not attribute the possession [of such goods] in another to perfection or excellence, and have no 78 See Abraham Zifroni, introduction, in Bahya Ibn Paquda, Sefer ḥovot ha-levavot [Duties of the Heart] (Tel Aviv, 1949), 8. 79 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.3(ed. Broadie and Rowe, 330–31). 80 Maimonides, Šemonah peraqim 4 (ed. Rabinowitz, 20–23): “Good actions are those that are balanced, the intermediate between two extremes, both of which are bad—the one excessive and the other deficient. . . . And modesty is intermediate between pride and humility of spirit.” See Herbert A. Davidson, “The Middle Way in Maimonides’ Ethics,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 54 (1987): 31–72. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 235 regard for it. And when they cannot deny their presence in another, they attribute it to passing good and fortunate accident rather than to the other’s merit. And when they cannot [attribute the other’s success to chance], they are distressed and sigh and attribute it to their [own] misfortune, because they consider themselves worthier of the goods than any around them. It is like the habit of gamblers who lose their money to their foolishness in placing their trust and calculation in the game, but in their minds attribute it to the other’s good fortune and their own misfortune, without realizing that it is due to their own foolish souls and stupidity. Therefore the definitions of pride are the figurations of the proud man, singing his own praises, imagining himself as lofty and possessing great virtue and the contrary in another, whom he therefore despises and diminishes with arrogance and condescension. And some of the Torah [scholars] have defined [pride] as the diminishing and despising of the other. And its opposites and parallels are defined as the opposites and parallels of this definition (fol. 16v; see appendix, text 11). Nathan’s criticism of Aristotle is unjustified, however, as the definition he attributes to Aristotle does not correspond to the definitions of pride in the Rhetoric or the Ethics. 81 Nathan would appear to have been misled by Averroes’ commentary on the Rhetoric, translated into Hebrew (1337) by Todros Todrosi—also of Arles, and a friend of Isaac Nathan’s grandfather, the translator and physician Judah Nathan of Arles.82 In the Commentary on the Rhetoric, pride is indeed described as the opposite of sadness and anxiety, characteristic of men of power (a “quality of leadership”), and is defined as “the distress that is experienced when [another] receives disproportionate good.” 83 Nathan subsequently offers his own definition of pride, pertaining primarily to the contempt with which the proud hold others—a definition he believed to be analogous to the biblical approach. Each of the sins and virtues is thoroughly analyzed in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ according to the linguistic expressions found in the entire corpus of sacred Hebrew literature, although the Bible plays a far more central role than Talmudic and Midrashic literature. Nathan attempted to cite all of the places in the Bible in which a particular sin or virtue is mentioned, sorting them by category. The 81 Aristotle, Rhetoric, book 2, 6.11, 10.4, and 17.4; Nicomachean Ethics 2.7 and 4.3 (ed. Broadie and Rowe, 118–20, 148–51). 82 M. Zonta, “Linee del pensiero islamico nella storia della filosofia ebraica medievale,” Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli 57 (1997): 101–44, 450–83, esp. 459, “Fonti antiche e medievali della logica ebraica nella Provenza del Trecento,” Medioevo 23 (1997): 515–94, esp. 529, and “Influence of Arabic and Islamic Philosophy on Judaic Thought,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Spring 2011 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/spr2011/entries/arabic-islamic-judaic/ (accessed 5 May 2013). 83 Averroes, Beʾur ʾIbn Rušd le-Sefer ha-halaṣah le-ʾArisṭo be-tirgum Ṭodros Ṭodrosi [Averroes’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Book of Rhetoric, Translated by Todros Todrosi], ed. Jacob Goldenthal (Leipzig, 1842), 133. DISTRIBUTION 236 R. BEN-SHALOM Bible serves as the basis for Nathan’s ethical analysis, while the Talmudic and Midrashic literature is cited merely to strengthen the distinctions drawn from the biblical references. This corresponds to Nathan’s socio-intellectual efforts, in Provence, to shift the emphasis in Jewish education away from the Talmud and philosophy, in favor of Scripture. His Hebrew concordance project and numerous essays on biblical subjects were also part of this comprehensive initiative. 84 The following passage from the “division of the sin” section relating to pride illustrates the thoroughness and attention to detail characteristic of Nathan’s approach: Its types (mineiha)—according to that which is found in Divine Scripture, in the Holy Tongue—are eight. (1) Pride of place: it is written, the pride of the Jordan [Zech. 11:3]; the pride of your waves [Job 38:11]; the pride of smoke [Isa. 9:17]. (2) Strength and triumph: it is written, and the sword of your excellency [Deut. 33:29]; the pride of your strength [Lev. 26:19; Ezek. 24:21]; his pride is rows of shields [Job 41:7]; pride of Jacob whom he loves [Ps. 47:5]. (3) Adornment and beauty: it is written, pride and beauty [Isa. 4:2]; the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride [Isa. 13:19]; the pride of all glory [Isa. 23:9]; the beauty of their ornament was set for a pride (legaon) [Ezek. 7:20]. (4) Satiety: it is written, pride, fullness of bread [Ezek. 16:49]. (5) Eternal majesty [pride]: it is written, and will not behold the majesty [gaʾavat—pride] of the Lord [Isa. 26:10]; an eternal excellency [Isa. 60:15]. (6) Indicating a lack of proportion or measure: it is written, sing unto the Lord, for he is exalted [Exod. 15:21]; I will sing unto the Lord, for he is exalted [Exod. 15:1]; . . . that is to say that the praise is not merely poetic language for that which is exalted above all blessing and praise, because it is impossible truly to describe him except in a figurative and poetic manner. (7) The majesty of [God’s] punishment and vengeance: it is written, for he has done gloriously [Isa. 12:5]; and in the greatness of your majesty you overthrow those who rise up against you [Exod. 15:7]; and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to break the [wicked of the] earth [Isa. 2:19 and 21]; he thunders with the voice of his majesty [Job 37:4]. (8) [Pride] that is present in human beings, and its types are eight: (1) that is present in a group or nation: it is written, the pride of Moab [Isa. 16:6; Jer. 48:29]; (2) that is present in its chiefs and leaders: it is written, your proudly exultant ones [Zeph. 3:11]; (3) that is present in the evil and the wicked: it is written, because of the pride of evil men [Job 35:12]; through the pride of the wicked [Ps. 10:2]; (4) that comes from foolishness: it is written, in the mouth of the fool is a rod of pride [Prov. 14:3]; (5) that is in speaking: with their mouth they speak proudly [Ps. 17:10]; arrogantly with pride and contempt [Ps. 31:19]; (6) that is in oppression: than sharing spoils with the proud [Prov. 16:19]. (7) that is in motion: it is written, let not the foot of pride overtake me [Ps. 36:12]; because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk [Isa. 3:16]. (8) that is in virtue and perfection: it is written, And his heart was high in the ways of the Lord [2 Chron. 17:6]. Regarding the fact that the categories (sugei) of pride are eight [referring to 84 See Ben-Shalom, “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance,” 308–20. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 237 the primary division termed mineiha], and the types (minei) of the eighth category (ha-sug) are eight—the eighth [type, virtue and perfection] being not undesirable—perhaps this is what the Sages [of the Talmud and Midrash] of blessed memory were referring to when they permitted the Torah scholar to possess one eighth of an eighth. 85 And the Sages of blessed memory said that a Torah scholar is loved by the townspeople not because he is excellent, but because he does not rebuke them with the words of heaven. 86 And it is written, but for the rebukers it will be pleasant [Prov. 24:25] (fols. 16v–17r; see appendix, text 12). It is reasonable to assume that the index to Nathan’s Hebrew concordance had been completed by the time he wrote Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ and that he would have used it in sorting the sins and virtues into categories and citing biblical references. It is also interesting to note that his review of biblical sources includes linguistic expressions that do not support his central thesis regarding the particular gravity of the sin of pride. Nathan did not ignore this fact, but tried to explain the divergence, as in the eighth type of the eighth category, above. From the verse in Chronicles—“And his [King Jehoshaphat’s] heart was high in the ways of the Lord”—Nathan concluded that there is also a type of pride that is not improper, that is, pride in the ways of God, which is what led Jehoshaphat to destroy the “high places” to idolatry in his realm. 87 This is also the basis for the nuance reflected in the Talmudic dictum that a Torah scholar may possess a modicum of pride, that he might command respect.88 Just as he criticizes Aristotle’s ethical formulations, Nathan also goes on to criticize the Maimonidean view regarding the remedy for pride, and the significance of man’s choosing the opposite extreme, humility: 85 BT Soṭah 5a. BT Ketubbot 105b. Nathan’s reading of the Talmudic passage (“excellent” rather than “more excellent”) can be found in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. ebr. 130, fol. 123v. 87 This is how the medieval commentator Rashi explains 2 Chron. 17:6: “His heart was high inasmuch as he walked only in the ways of God.” The difficulty presented by this verse was already noted by the sages of the Midrash (Tanḥuma, Parašat Šofṭim 2 [ed. Solomon Buber]): “And it is written, ‘And his heart was high in the ways of the Lord; and furthermore he took away the high places and the Asherim out of Judah’ (2 Chron. 17:6). Was he coarse of spirit, that it is written, ‘and his heart was high’? Rather that he appointed judges over them, versed in the ways of the Lord.” Nahmanides, in his commentary on Exod. 32:6, uses the same expression, in a positive sense, with reagard to Moses: “And his heart was high in the ways of the Lord to take it [the golden calf] from them and burn it before their eyes.” See also Nahmanides on Exod. 35:21. 88 See Rashi on BT Soṭah 5a: “One eighth of an eighth. A small portion . . . that is to say that he must possess a modicum of pride, lest the foolish abuse him, and that his words might be accepted [even] unwillingly.” 86 DISTRIBUTION 238 R. BEN-SHALOM Indeed the other extreme [humility] is generally considered excellent, whether it appears as another name for the mean and is exchanged for it, or whether it is considered excellent and superior when it is adopted by its possessor as a remedy, in order to distance himself from the more despicable extreme, just as physicians use opposite properties to redress the balance. . . . And since the devisings of the human heart are evil from youth and tend more to one extreme, which is pride, and it is more imprinted in him, and its damage is greater, despicable, and loathsome in the eyes of God and man, it is impossible to eradicate it in him, except by persistent use of the act of submission and humility, by means of which he will return to the mean, which is modesty (fol. 16r; see appendix, text 13). Nathan describes a widespread social phenomenon, whereby some intentionally choose humility. In this I believe he was referring to Christian and Jewish society alike. He offers two explanations for the phenomenon: the mistaken belief that humility is in fact the intermediate quality; and the Aristotelian explanation regarding the means to attaining ethical perfection. According to Aristotle, the mean is not always easy to find. Sometimes, one of the two extremes is more erroneous than the other. In order to reach the intermediate state, one must therefore go further toward the extreme that is against one’s own nature. 89 Maimonides also addressed the social phenomenon of intentional exaggeration, which he rejected, although he considered the Aristotelian method a necessary condition for attaining the intermediate state, just as Hippocratic medical theory recommends treating illness with contrasting remedies. 90 Regarding the nature of the great-souled (the modest, in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ), however, Aristotle asserted that the extremes are not bad but merely mistaken, and of the two, humility is the more common and more harmful. 91 89 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.9 (ed. Broadie and Rowe, 121–22). Maimonides Šemonah peraqim 4 (ed. Rabinowitz, 24–26): “And often people err in these actions and consider one of the extremes good and a virtue of the soul. . . . And since man is not born, in his nature, from his very beginning, with either virtue or of vice . . . he should be healed in the manner in which the body is healed by [striving for] balance. When a body becomes imbalanced, we ascertain the side to which the imbalance tends and contrast it with its opposite until balance is restored. And when balance is restored, we cease administering the opposite. . . . So too with the balance of the virtues.” Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics 2.3 (ed. Broadie and Rowe, 112) also used the medical analogy, but Maimonides, who was a physician himself, cited it more frequently, and in greater detail (see Šemonah peraqim 3 and 4 (ed. Rabinowitz, 19; 28 and 33). The medical analogy cited by Nathan was clearly influenced by Maimonides, although Nathan, like Maimonides, came from a family of physicians, with a longstanding medical and literary tradition. It is worth noting, however, that medical analogies were fairly common in Christian ethical discourse in Western Europe; see, for example, canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council, cited in Rita Copeland, “Confessional Texts,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge, 2002), 392. 91 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.3 (ed. Broadie and Rowe, 151). 90 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 239 Nathan’s divergence from the Aristotelian view, and his willingness to accept the conscious choice of humility as a means of escaping pride—considered the greater evil—would appear to be the result of Christian influence,92 possibly combined with that of certain Jewish circles that had internalized Christian or Sufi ascetic trends. As we have seen, Maimonides too recommended straying from the intermediate state toward one extreme, in certain circumstances, and was apparently influenced by the spiritual climate of the Middle Ages and its tendency to asceticism. Nevertheless, he argued that one should not practice self-deprivation beyond that which is commanded in the Torah. He believed that normative precepts of the Torah, in and of themselves, afford the slight deviation from the mean necessary for the sake of self-discipline. 93 Isaac Nathan’s approach to the sin of pride also differs greatly from that of Maimonides and Aristotle. Nathan views pride as the gravest sin in the eyes of God and men. Like Maimonides and Aristotle, he views a life of modesty as man’s ultimate goal, but to that end he accepts the validity of perennial humility rather than a temporary deviation from the mean. The detailed, critical discussion of the pride-modesty-humility relation in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ is somewhat reminiscent of the ethical-terminological discourse in the Christian world on that very topic, beginning with the introduction of Aristotelian thought in Christian theology in the thirteenth century, and the breaking of the binary convention in medieval ethics, whereby every sin has a contrasting virtue, and the opposite of pride (superbia) is humility (humilitas). 94 In the monastic world, humility was widely considered the most important virtue—the antithesis of the sin of pride.95 A similar view can be 92 Other topics addressed by Nathan also parallel Christian discourse on the sins and virtues. Thus, for example, Nathan includes both food and drink in the sin of gluttony, in keeping with the Christian approach. In the section on biblical figures guilty of gluttony, Nathan lists Adam and Eve foremost, following John Chrysostom, who identified original sin with gluttony. Both Noah and Lot are also presented by Nathan as gluttons and drunkards—an image also found in works of English poets William Langland (ca. 1332–ca. 1386) and Geoffrey Chaucer. See Geoffrey Chaucer, “Pardoner’s Tale” 498–504 (ed. Fred N. Robinson, The Canterbury Tales. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer [Boston, 1957]; and William Ian Miller, “Gluttony,” in Wicked Pleasures: Meditations on the Seven “Deadly” Sins, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Lanham, Md., 1999), 22 and 28. 93 See Maimonides, Šemonah peraqim 4 (ed. Rabinowitz, 163–64); Eliezer Schweid, ʿ Iyunim bi-Šemonah perakqim la-Rambam [Studies in Maimonides’ Eight Chapters] (Jerusalem, 1965), 92–94. 94 Carla Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio, Histoire des péchés capitaux au Moyen Age, trans. Pierre Emmanuel Dauzat (Paris, 2009), 36–38. 95 See Benedicti regula 5, 7, and 58 (ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL 75 [Vienna, 1977], 35–52 and 138). Thus, for example, in the tree of virtues in New Haven, Yale University Beinecke Library DISTRIBUTION 240 R. BEN-SHALOM found, for example, in the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux and those of the mystic Hildegard of Bingen, and was also prominent beyond monastic circles. 96 The Aristotelian innovations were thus fiercely attacked at the University of Paris—stressing, inter alia, the contrast between the Christian virtue of humility, and the Aristotelian virtue of greatness of soul, which was perceived as antithetical to the words of Jesus. In this context, the Averroist philosopher Siger de Brabant argued, for example, that both humility and greatness of soul are virtues, but greatness of soul is the more perfect of the two. 97 Bonaventure, on the other hand, rejected this position, sustaining the Augustinian view that humility is the one and only way to truth. Albertus Magnus and especially Thomas Aquinas found a compromise between the Augustinian and the Aristotelian views, asserting that humility and greatness of soul are not conflicting values but different facets of the same virtue.98 It should be noted that the subject of attitudes to humility was also part of the general discourse and polemics between Jewish society and the phenomenon of Christian monasticism. 99 Nevertheless, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the intellectual debate regarding asceticism and humility was not aimed merely at Christianity and Christian values. Certain forms of asceticism, influenced by Christianity as well as Neoplatonic philosophy and Muslim mysticism, spread through Jewish society in Spain and Provence, particularly in Neoplatonic circles. In matters of ethics and conduct, members of such circles advocated perishut and asceticism as a condition for the attainment of perfection. They formulated and expounded the Neoplatonic ethical doctrine of Abraham Ibn Ezra and the extreme intellectualism of Maimonides in a clear and explicit fashion. They advocated the rejection of social and sexual life and extolled the virtues of solitude as the path to religious, political, and intellectual perfection, and communion with God. 100 In 416, the virtue of humility corresponds to the first deadly sin (pride), and the inscription on the tree’s pot reads “humility is root of the virtues.” See Matt Aleksinas, “The Tree of Virtues and the Tree of Vices in Beinecke MS 416” (Yale University, 2006), 3–4, http://brbl-archive. library.yale.edu/exhibitions/speculum/3v–4r-virtues-and-vices.html (accessed 5 May 2013). 96 See Casagrande and Vecchio, Histoire, 38; and Aleksinas, “Tree of Virtues,” 3–4. 97 Siger de Brabant, Quaestiones morales 1 (ed. Bernard Bazan, in Siger de Brabant. Écrits de logique, de morale et de physique [Louvain, 1974], 98–99); Casagrande and Vecchio, Histoire, 39. 98 Casagrande and Vecchio, Histoire, 39–44. 99 See Ben-Shalom, “Jews and Friars,” 36–38. 100 See Dov Schwartz, Yashan be-kankan hadash: Mishnato ha-iyunit shel ha-hug haneoplatoni ba-filosofyah ha-Yehudit ba-meah ha-14 [The Philosophy of a Fourteenth-Century Jewish Neoplatonic Circle] (Jerusalem, 1996); Jeremy Cohen, “Be Fertile and Increase. Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (Ithaca, 1984), DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 241 twelfth- and thirteenth-century Provence, there were ascetic circles among the perushim of the yeshivot, and particularly—albeit not exclusively—among the early Kabbalists. 101 Humility was also considered a central value among the Hasidei Ashkenaz [German Pietists], who viewed pride as a grave ethical defect. One of the characteristics of Pietism was the ability to suffer public humiliation with equanimity. 102 The polemics regarding monastic phenomena and the profession of extreme humility were thus also aimed inward, at specific groups espousing similar values. Isaac Nathan opposed the monastic way of life (in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, asceticism and monasticism are the negative extreme opposite of the deadly sin of lust), yet his conception of humility was influenced by the Christian approach and thus differed from that of Maimonides inasmuch as Nathan favored deviation from the Aristotelian mean, albeit only with regard to the sin of pride. The idea of pride as first and foremost among the sins is entirely in keeping traditional Christian thought, which viewed pride as a the typical sin of the ruling class (primarily members of the feudal aristocracy and knights) and the root of all sin. SOCIAL CRITICISM AND MUTUAL IMAGES OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS Avarice held an important place in the Christianity of late antiquity, often heading the list of sins—particularly in the works of authors engaged in the conversion of pagans. 103 Over time, with the development of feudal society in Western Europe, its importance decreased, as it was largely supplanted by the sin of pride. In the later Middle Ages, however, and especially following the eleventh and twelfth century, and the rise of commerce and the middle class in Western Europe, the importance of the second deadly sin began to increase once again. Greed (avaritia) had come to be viewed by many as the gravest sin, typical of the newly-rich and merchant class. This phenomenon also reand “Rationales for Conjugal Sex in RaAvaD’s Baʿale ha-Nefesh,” Jewish History 6 (1992): 65–78. 101 Israel Ta-Shma, Rabi Zeraḥyah ha-Levi baʿal ha -Maʾor u-vnei ḥugo: Le-toledot harabanut be-Provans [Rabbi Zerahyah ha-Levi, Author of the Maʾor and His Circle: On the History of the Rabbinate in Provence] (1992), 166; Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah (Princeton, 1991), 199–248. 102 Yitzhak Baer, “The Religio-Social Tendency of Sefer ḥasidim” [Hebrew], Zion 3 (1937): 9–10. The presence of the German pietists in thirteenth-century Provence will be discussed in my forthcoming article in Tarbiz. 103 Richard Newhauser, The Early History of Greed: The Sin of Avarice in Early Medieval Thought and Literature (Cambridge, 2000). DISTRIBUTION 242 R. BEN-SHALOM ceived widespread visual and homiletic expression, especially in France.104 In Nathan’s list of deadly sins, avarice (kilut) is the second sin, less important than pride. Nathan also stressed the difference between pride and avarice, with regard to the golden mean. While the Torah permitted one to tend toward the other extreme of pride, in the case of avarice, the Torah recommended merely adhering to the intermediate quality of generosity: “Contrary to its prescription in [the case of] pride—toward which most who possess it have a strong tendency, from the time of [their] creation—Scripture prescribed intermediate means for its [avarice’s] remedy” (fol. 27r). In this context we must recall that in Christian literature and art, the sin of greed was often depicted not only in the form of an avaricious merchant but also as a Jew, or the archetypal greedy Jew, Judas Iscariot (“Judas mercator pessimus significat usurarios”). 105 In Philippe de Mézières’s Le Songe du vieil pelerin, for example, the allegorical figure Avarice cites the Jews as its foremost allies, alongside sinful Christians, Lombards, and Italians. 106 Echoes of this can be discerned in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, and it is specifically in Nathan’s treatment of the second sin, avarice, that the differences between Christians and Jews emerge. Nathan rarely stresses the differences between the two religions, as Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ is dedicated to the subject of human sin and virtue in general, without socio-ethical distinctions. It is thus reasonable to assume, in the case of avarice, that it was the negative portrayal of Jews in Christian discourse that led Nathan to provide an analysis of commerce in his time with respect to differences between religions: Definition: And the Sage [Aristotle], in book four of the Ethics, defined generosity as the intermediate state in the taking and giving of money. It follows from this definition that avarice and wastefulness are deviations from the mean in giving and taking. These definitions would appear to be lacking, however. First, according to the peoples who have faiths [baʿalei haʾemunot, i.e., Jews and Christians], the vice of avarice concerns only improper taking as distinct from giving, and parsimony [is viewed] as distinct from taking. Second, avarice is identified and described as pertaining neither to giving nor to taking, but to one to whom God has denied the ability to enjoy and take pleasure in his possessions. Third, unseemly gain should not be included in the category of [immoderate] taking, when it is necessary despite its unseemliness. This is particularly so among us, adherents of the Torah, who accept the maxim “skin a carcass in the market and do not say I am a great priest” [i.e., any kind of labor is preferable to being supported by oth- 104 See Little, “Pride Goes Before Avarice,” 16–49. See ibid., 37 and n.83 for the quotation from Hortus deliciarum. 106 Paulette L’Hermite-Leclercq, “Les juifs et Synagogue chez Philippe de Mézières,” in L’expulsion des juifs de France, 1394, ed. Gilbert Dahan (Paris, 2004), 141 and 145. 105 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 243 ers]. 107 And all the [Christian] merchants of the lands, in their ledgers, follow the view of the Sage [Aristotle], and register their accounts of giving and taking, and since most of what they do is improper taking, most are prone to violation, exploitation, and flight. And therefore, in seeking a complete definition of [the sin of avarice] for ourselves, including all of its subcategories, we replace the term taking with that of income and collection, and the term giving with that of outlay, and place between them the distinguishing word “or” or “whether.” And the definition of avarice discussed in this treatise is first and foremost departure from the mean and tendency away from that which is right, whether in monetary income and collection, or whether in its outlay and expenditure, that is to say, excess beyond the mean in collection or deficiency in outlay. And its opposite is wastefulness, which is deficiency in collection or excess in outlay and expenditure. And the intermediate state is generosity, which tends neither to collection nor to outlay. And that is why we who are loyal in our covenant [i.e., Jews] call our ledgers books of income and outlay. And all three, that is, the avaricious, the generous and the wasteful, must ensure that their income exceed their outlay or at least equal it. And these terms—generosity, avarice, and wastefulness—would appear to pertain more to outlay than to income. And since the adherents of the Torah view avarice as a general category of sin, they should include improper collection or improper taking in its definition. Or perhaps its definition is, as widely understood, the excessive love of possessions, which is said to be the beginning of sin 108 (fols. 21v–22r; see appendix, text 14). The end of the passage includes implicit criticism of Jews, whose concept of avarice, Nathan asserts, must include “improper collection” (probably a reference to usury)—the same sin he attributes to Christian merchants earlier in the passage. It is likely that Nathan believed Jewish merchants and usurers to be as guilty as their Christian colleagues of unfair business practices, but preferred only to intimate such charges because of the negative images associated with Jews in Christian discourse. Jewish polemicists generally emphasized the fairness of Jewish moneylenders, in light of Christian accusations regarding the practice of usury. 109 We must remember that Nathan himself was a merchant and moneylender on a vast scale, who would not have found fault with charging permissible interest on loans.110 The issue of mutual images is reflected in another exemplum on avarice, later in the chapter. While Christian 107 BT Pesaḥim 113a; BT Bava Batra 109a. Cf. 1 Tim. 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” 109 On Jewish usury in thirteenth-century Provence, efforts to repress the phenomenon, and Jewish-Christian polemics, see Robert Chazan, “Anti-Usury Efforts in Thirteenth Century Narbonne and the Jewish Response,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 41–42 (1973–74): 45–67; and Joseph Shatzmiller, Shylock Reconsidered: Jews, Moneylending, and Medieval Society (Berkeley, 1990), esp. 69–70 and 104–18. 110 See pp. 211–12 above. 108 DISTRIBUTION 244 R. BEN-SHALOM preachers focused public attention on the avaricious Jews, primarily by means of exempla, Nathan’s exempla tells the story of an avaricious king of France: The story is told of a king of France who had an avaricious nature and loved to defraud [his subjects]. In order to satisfy his desires, and to please him and find favor in his eyes, his counselors would help him in his wickedness and devise ways to provide him with ruses from which to profit and defraud [his subjects]. One day he arrived at one of his towns, where there dwelt a wealthy man, the wealthiest in the town, who had innumerable possessions, and [the king] was advised to summon him to a banquet. When his heart was glad with drink, [the king] ordered him to submit, within one month, a written inventory of all of his properties and possessions, without exception, on pain of forfeiting all of his property to the royal treasury. And the man said, “Here I am, my lord king. I will go and do your bidding and I will not tarry more than this day, for I shall return to you with the inventory of all of that I possess.” Evening came, and he returned to him with a small writ in his hand, and the king asked him, “Does this paper include all of your possessions?” And he said to him, “Your eyes shall see that I have nothing else. Therefore my Lord, portion by portion, I shall read to you all that is truthfully written.” And he read first twenty-five écus, 111 then twelve, then thirty, then twenty, and so forth, until he reached the sum of one thousand écus or thereabout. And when the [king’s] counselors heard this, they shouted at him and said, “Is this what this wicked, lying, betrayer of his lord’s covenant has thought [to do]? We know for a fact that he possesses sheep and cattle and many slaves, houses and fields and vineyards—out in the open and irrefutable, yet he denies them.” And the man was silent until they had finished speaking ill of him, and said, “My lord king, if you listen to me and accept my words you will know that my mouth speaks truth and that they are lying, and I have hidden nothing from my lord. The twenty-five écus that I read to you refer to a marriageable orphan-girl whom I wed to a boy her age, and the twelve to clothing I provided to two people who had nothing with which to cover themselves against the cold, and the thirty écus to a dead man I chanced upon, who had no one to bury him—an illustrious man of good family, and I honored him in his death, giving him a burial worthy [of his station]. And the twenty I used to redeem my neighbor from his captor. And so I have done, up to the sum of one thousand, similar actions to these, that undoubtedly you cannot take from me, and the fruits of which I enjoy in this world, while the principal awaits me in the world to come. This is my portion of all my labors, which cannot be taken by treachery, robbery, fraud, highwaymen in the night, or any of the vicissitudes that may occur. The remainder of the things in my possession are not mine, and you may take them any time you like, especially if you follow the advice of your counselors and listen to them.” And when the king was ill on his deathbed, and was but a step from death, he ordered his steward to take two hundred ducats and parade them through the streets, announcing that this is what the king will take with him 111 The écu was a French coin, usually of gold, bearing a crowned shield (écu) as its obverse type, first minted in 1266, during the reign of Louis IX, and again after 1385. See Philip Grierson and Lucia Travaini, Medieval European Coinage 14, III (Cambridge, 1998), 175 and 461. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 245 of all his treasures. He said, “Naked I emerged from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return.” And he said, “For in his death he will not take all, his glory won’t go down behind him” (fol. 25r–v; see appendix, text 15). This exemplum is emblematic of Nathan’s interaction with both his Jewish and his Christian surroundings. 112 On the one hand, the story conducts the sin of avarice away from the Jews to the monarchy and Christianity, in order to contribute to changing familiar anti-Jewish images. Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ was intended for a Jewish readership, however. Nathan’s aim would thus appear to have been to contrast the Christian image of the avaricious Jew that had penetrated Jewish consciousness. On the other hand, this is a further example of the stylistic influence exerted by the “mirrors for princes” genre on Nathan’s work on the subject of the vices and virtues. The minor self-correction practiced by the French king at the end of the story, albeit on his deathbed, was meant as a lesson for rulers and leaders (Jews and Christians alike) of the correct ethical path they must follow. The social criticism that arises from time to time in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ was also aimed at Jews and Christians alike. One example of this can be found in the chapter on sloth, 113 in which Nathan lists a number of professions and activities afflicted by that sin: A slothful person who desires [things] but avoids striving for them, preferring inactivity. . . . And since their desire is greater than their industry, they cleverly seek out all sorts of highly profitable occupations of deception that require no effort in their achievement, such as alchemy, soap-making, tanning, and the making of talismans. And this leads them to deny him, blessed be he, and to seek out strange gods. And of that which is earned by means of these occupations that do not trouble those who engage in them, it is written, “and eats not the bread of sloth” [Prov. 31:27] (fol. 41r; see appendix, text 16). 114 112 A similar tale, concerning a Jewish courtier from Toledo, current among the Jews expelled from Spain (1492), can be found in Abraham Gavison’s commentary on Proverbs 5, in ʿOmer ha-šikheḥah [Forgotten Sheaf] (Livorno, 1748), 14b. See Hayim H. Ben-Sasson “The Generation of Spanish Exiles on Itself” [Hebrew], in Reṣef u-tmurah.ʿlyyunim be- toledot Yiśraʾel bi-yemei ha-beina'im u-va-ʿet ha-ḥadashah [Continuity and Change: Studies in Medieval and Modern Jewish History], ed. Joseph Hacker (Tel Aviv, 1984), 207 and 452 n.46. 113 Structurally, Nathan’s treatment of the sin of sloth in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ resembles that of the Christian theologians and scholastics. In terms of content and meaning, however, Nathan’s acedia is one that has been stripped of all theological significance—such as sluggishness in the love of God, or the effort to attain ultimate felicity—and undergone a process of secularization. Similarly, Nathan makes no explicit mention of the psychological manifestations of the sin, such as melancholy. The definition of sloth in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ is, in fact, closer to that of the moral philosophers, influenced by the Nicomachean Ethics. See Wenzel, Sin of Sloth, 182–84. 114 On the word borit, translated here as “soap,” see David Kimhi’s commentary on Jer. 2:22: “Borit—Some say this refers to what is called sabon in the vernacular, and others say it is DISTRIBUTION 246 R. BEN-SHALOM The occupations listed by Nathan were not specifically Jewish, but common to society as a whole, while some, such as alchemy, were hardly exercised by Jews at all. Nathan’s criticism is thus leveled at society in general, of which Jews were presumed to be an integral part. The list would also appear to reflect a bourgeois contempt for lower craftsmen such as soap-makers and tanners—their association with alchemy and astral magic being far from selfevident in the context of the sin of sloth.115 In the following passage, which appears in the introduction to the treatise, Nathan follows in the footsteps of a long line of Jewish and Christian preachers, who railed against sexual promiscuity: as the lechers and the gluttons do, choosing foods to increase sexual desire and seed, and lust for food to swell the belly and increase the spillings of harlotry. They also make images and paintings on clothing and rings and nose-rings, as an unforgettable memento of sin, sometimes inscribing them with the name of the desirer or the desired, in riddles, to evoke [sinful] thoughts and perpetuate desire, sometimes including phrases such as “My beloved is mine and I am his. There is none beside him. She is but one. In her is my desire. My longing is for her. All my wellsprings are in you. Dearly beloved of my soul. All my salvation and all my desire.” And sometimes they take a lute (kinnor) and revel in lust songs, merrymaking about the city, ensuring that their transgression will be remembered always. And our Sages, of blessed memory, said [BT Yoma 29a] thoughts of sin are worse than sin itself (fol. 13r–v; see appendix, text 17). The use of philtres (pocula amatoria), potions, and other preparations, foods and herbs intended to arouse desire, was common in Jewish and Christian society alike, 116 and Isaac Nathan condemned the phenomenon in general. Of particular interest is Nathan’s description of the practice of painting and engraving erotic images on clothing and jewelry (the expression he uses, “memento of sin,” is taken from Num. 5:15, and affirms the context of fornication and harlotry, as described in that chapter on the subject of the “wayward woman” [sotah]). Nathan notes, in particular, the inscription of riddles, alluding to the desired woman’s name or to that of her lover. The reference would appear to be to riddles that incorporate the letters of the name in quesa plant used in laundering clothes”; Rashi on Mal. 3:2: “Borit is a plant used to remove stains: [erbe] sa[vo]naire in the vernacular.” 115 On the same phenomenon in Spain, see Eleazar Gutwirth, “Contempt for the Lower Orders in XVth Century Hispano Jewish Thought,” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos 30.2 (1981): 83–98. 116 On Jewish society, see Suessmann Muntner, R. Šabbetai Donnolo (Jerusalem, 1949), 56–57; and Raphael Loewe, “A Medieval Latin German Magical Text in Hebrew Characters,” in Jewish History, Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramsky, ed. Ada Rapoport-Albert and Steven J. Zipperstein (London, 1989), 345–66, esp. 353–55. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 247 tion (by acrostic or inversion), and possibly figurative devices as well. We know of such erotic practices among the aristocracy of the time. 117 Another illicit practice described in this paragraph by Nathan is that of including a brief, implicitly intimate or erotic phrase in such inscriptions. The phrases he cites here are mostly taken from the Bible, and thus outwardly innocent. Detached from their biblical context, however, their erotic significance becomes patently obvious. The expression “my beloved is mine and I am his,” for example, from Song of Songs 2:16—interpreted by most medieval Jewish exegetes as a reference to the relationship between God and the Jewish people— is used in the context of sexual love. The expressions “all my wellsprings are in you” (Ps. 87:7) and “dearly beloved of my soul” (Jer. 12:7)—references in the Bible to Zion and the Jewish people—are employed to affirm the lover’s devotion to his beloved. Similarly, the phrase “in her is my desire” (Isa. 62:4)—an expression of longing for the land of Israel—can only assume an erotic sense when detached from its biblical context, particularly for those familiar with the remainder of the verse and the one that follows: “for as a young man espouses a maiden, so shall your sons espouse you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride.” David’s parting words, “all my salvation and all my desire” (2 Sam. 23:5), in which he expresses last wishes of a religio-philosophical or political nature, also appear to allude to earthly sexual needs when cited out of their original context. The expression “she is but one” (Song 6:9)—widely interpreted as an allegory of God’s selection of Israel from among the nations—becomes a lover’s declaration that his beloved surpasses all other women. “There is none beside him” can be found primarily in the biblical commentaries, in reference to God’s unity; 118 a similar phrase, “beside me there is no savior” (Hosea 13:4), also refers to the oneness of God. Taken out of its original context, however, it becomes the feminine counterpart of the masculine declaration “she is but one,” with the woman extolling her lover above all other men. It should also be noted that the expression “my longing is for her” does not appear as such in the Bible but evokes the verse “And for your man shall be your longing, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16), in conjunction with the description of sin in Gen. 4:7: “and if you do not well, sin crouches at the door and for you is its longing, but you will rule over it.” The use of such erotic phrases by Jews was not new in Isaac Nathan’s time. They can be found in fourteenth-century Provençal love songs, 119 and 117 118 119 Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 141–44. See, e.g., Abraham Ibn Ezra on Ps. 18:32; and Nahmanides on Deut. 32:21. See Moshe Lazar, “Catalan-Provençal Wedding Songs (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries)” DISTRIBUTION 248 R. BEN-SHALOM moralists railed against the phenomenon as early as the thirteenth century. Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi (of Lunel), for example, wrote, “Those young men (baḥurim) who have strayed from the moral path . . . who seize upon phrases from the twenty-four [books the Bible], uttered in the spirit of prophecy, and [use them to] allude to the abominations of women, falsifying the true Torah.” 120 There is also evidence of public concern in thirteenthcentury Germany regarding the possible erotic interpretation of various expressions found in the piyyut Yefe nof [Lovely in heights], by Yaqar ha-Levi, recited in the synagogue on the festival of Simhat Torah, as the boundaries between erotic human reality and sacred human metaphor had become somewhat confused. 121 These Jewish expressions resembled the family mottos of the Christian aristocracy, emblazoned on clothing and other items, such as armor and horse’s caparisons. Some of these mottos were cryptic, and many concerned love. The most intimate expressions were engraved on finger rings— expressions such as “Mon cuer avez” [You have my heart], “Je le désire” [I desire it], “Pour tousjours” [For ever], “Tout pour vous” [All for you], “Plus que toutes” [More than all], “Aultre narray” [I shall have no other]. 122 The Jewish mottos recorded by Nathan in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ are very similar to the Christian mottos. They are short, not vulgar or lewd, and can be understood in more than one way. The practice of singing and playing love songs in the streets of Provence, condemned by Nathan, is noted by Kalonymos ben Kalonymos of Arles, in ʾEven boḥan [Touchstone] (completed 1322). 123 Although the term baḥurim, [Hebrew], in Sefer Hayyim Schirmann: Koveṣ Meḥkarim [Hayyim (Jefim) Schirmann Jubilee Volume], ed. Shraga Abramson and Ahron Mirsky (Jerusalem, 1970), 159–77. Nathan’s “my beloved is mine and I am his,” for example, resembles the phrase “my beloved is mine, he lies between my breasts” (Song 1:13) found there (176). 120 Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi, Peruš le-masekhet Kallah [Commentary on Tractate Kallah], ed. Barukh Toledano (Tiberias, 1905/6). See Joseph Yahalom, “A Hebrew Renaissance in the Offshoots of Spanish culture” [Hebrew], Pe'amim 26 (1986): 13. 121 Sarit Shalev-Eyni, “Human Aspects of the Torah and Medieval Art” [Hebrew], Zion 73 (2008): 157–58. 122 Huzinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 275–76. 123 Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, ʾEven boḥan [Touchstone], ed. A. M. Haberman (Tel Aviv, 1956), 13–15. See also Menahem ben Solomon ha-Meiri, Magen ʾavot [Shield of the Fathers], ed. Isaac Last (London, 1909), 49. Ha-Meiri, in the late thirteenth century, condemned the practice of Jewish students in Perpignan of singing and playing musical instruments on the Sabbath. The problem in this case was not one of revelry and intermingling of the sexes—the students in question were all men—nor did he find fault with the practice itself but rather with the day on which it took place, i.e., the Sabbath. Solomon Alami, on the other hand (ʾIggeret DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 249 which appears in Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi’s admonition, is not mentioned here, Nathan’s objections would appear to have been to practices favored by young men and women, both Christians and Jews, in the erotic spirit of the late Middle Ages, including obscenities, double-entendres, and lascivious symbols, which had degenerated into games and amusements. 124 The Church tried, unsuccessfully, to check such lewd and erotic behavior, and Nathan too, in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, criticizes erotic speech: “Let him not be tempted into [such] pleasures . . . and let him flee from speaking of them and [recounting] their stories, lest he speak their names, and our Sages of blessed memory said, ‘he who utters obscenity will descend to Gehenna,’ that is, will proceed toward it, for it is the cause of the sin that brings its perpetrator to descend to Sheol” (fol. 13r). ISAAC NATHAN AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES The concept of the seven deadly sins and the four cardinal virtues spread throughout medieval Western Europe by means of books on the sins and the virtues, general ethical works, exempla, penitential and confessional texts, sermons, poetry, art, theater, etc.125 In light of the existence of many different sources, it is hard to point to any single work as the one from which Isaac Nathan may have drawn his knowledge of this Christian ethical method. Nathan often heard the sermons of Christian preachers in Arles and was probably present, as a boy, when Vincent Ferrer preached to the Jews of the city, in 1400. 126 Thus, he may have heard sermons on the subject of the seven sins and the four virtues. Christian art would have been another possible source of Nathan’s knowledge of the vices and the virtues, as evidenced by a number of musar, 24–25), criticized the singing of songs of lust that lead to sexual promiscuity and depravity. 124 Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, 128–31. This well-known phenomenon is better documented for the Jews in early modern Europe, and especially in Italy. See Elliot S. Horowitz, “Mondi giovanili ebraici in Europa, 1300–1800,” in Storia dei giovani, ed. Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Rome, 1994), 101–57; and Roni Weinstein, Marriage Rituals Italian Style: A Historical Anthropological Perspective on Early Modern Italian Jews (Leiden, 2003), esp. 311–50. 125 See Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art, Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching 24 (Toronto, 1989); and Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, passim, and the introduction to In the Garden of Eden, vii, citing Heinrich Suso, Horologium sapientiae 2.3 on the vast number of books on the vices and virtues. 126 Ben-Shalom, “Disputation of Tortosa,” 35–38, and “Jews and Friars,” 36–47. DISTRIBUTION 250 R. BEN-SHALOM Christian artistic motifs in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, including the representation of the virtue of Justice. 127 Nathan, as noted above, read works in Latin, and would appear to have had access to one of the monastic libraries. 128 His familiarity with the Summa theologiae would seem to indicate that he had also read Thomas’s views on the deadly sins, the virtues, and more. Nathan’s adoption of the Aristotelian golden mean, however, shows greater Maimonidean influence, since Aquinas did not apply the method specifically to each and every one of the vices and virtues. Similarly, the treatment of ethical subjects and issues in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ bears little resemblance to Aquinas’s scholastic approach, which—although it accepted the seven deadly sins as a traditional ethical method—strayed from the traditional path in its ethical-philosophical discussions. 129 A comparison between the chapters on the sins in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ and the thought of Aquinas reveals significant differences. For example, Thomas cites five different aspects of gula (gluttony): 1) praepropere—eating too soon; 2) laute—eating too expensively; 3) nimis—eating too much; 4) ardenter—eating to eagerly; 5) studiose—eating too daintily. 130 The five aspects of gluttony cited by Nathan, on the other hand, are 1) eating excessively; 2) refined tastes—discriminating between foods, selecting those that are tastier or more pleasing to the eye; 3) craving a wide variety of foods and tastes; 4) indulging in foods that are detrimental to one’s health; 5) eating foods proscribed by divine law (fols. 36v–37r). Although both authors refer to aspects of delicate eating, Nathan places greater emphasis on health and forbidden foods. 131 127 See Ben-Shalom, “Christian Art,” and Mul tarbut, 119–24 According to one of the notarial documents from Arles, Nathan’s mother’s house (probably the house in which he spent his youth) shared a common wall with the Dominican monastery in the city’s St. Martin quarter. See Ben-Shalom, “Disputation of Tortosa,” 38. 129 Wenzel, “Seven Deadly Sins,” 14; Newhauser, In the Garden of Evil, xi. See also Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on the Virtues, trans. John A. Oesterle (Notre Dame, 1984). On the scholarly debate regarding Aquinas and the question of theological or philosophical perspective in his commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, see Matthias Perkams, “Aquinas’s Interpretation of the Aristotelian Virtue of Justice and his Doctrine of Natural Law,” in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages, ed. Bejczy, esp. 131–32 130 Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, English translation by Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York, 1947), Second Part, Question 148, Article 4 (cf. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 30.18). See Susan E. Hill, “ ‘The Ooze of Gluttony’: Attitudes Towards Food, Eating, and Excess in the Middle Ages,” in Seven Deadly Sins: From Communities to Individuals, ed. Newhauser, 57–72; and Robert F. Yeager, “Aspects of Gluttony in Chaucer and Gower,” Studies in Philology 81 (1984): 42–55. 131 Nathan, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fol. 36v: “And the physicians have already cautioned that filling the stomach to capacity is the cause of [various] illness, and how good it is that mores coincide with medical opinion, for this was the Torah’s intention in all or most of the forbidden 128 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 251 Despite the affinity between Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ and scholastic thought, Nathan’s treatise does not address the central issues of scholasticism, in particular or in general. Scholasticism sought, first and foremost, to rationalize the theological tradition of the seven sins (the Gregorian list, for example), to justify their number and to ascertain whether the classification is accurate and in keeping with the ethical conception of evil. Among the writings of scholastic authors Siegfried Wenzel has noted three basic models regarding the rationale of the sins: concatenation, the psychological rationale, and the cosmological (or symbolic) rationale. The first developed the idea (already found in the works of Cassian and Gregory the Great) of a connection between the seven sins in a specific order. In the second, the various sins were associated with specific parts of the soul, and the process involved in the commission of each sin was explained in relation to the roles played by the soul’s respective parts following either the Platonic division of the soul into three or the Aristotelian division into five; the psychological rationale was also dominated by the view of sin as misdirection of will. The third model was based upon the idea that man consists of seven parts—three powers of the soul and four elements of the body (earth, fire, water, air)—each associated with the vices and the virtues, and connected to the planets.132 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ does not follow any of these models, and the idea of concatenation is entirely absent. The affinity to scholasticism is reflected in the use of general Aristotelian method, the literary form of categorization, and the philosophical manner in which the characteristics of the sins and the virtues are presented. Most of the scholastics (Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, for example) rejected the application of the Aristotelian golden mean to each and every vice and virtue, since they viewed such an approach as incompatible with the conception of the deadly sins as expounded by Gregory the Great. In general, they also explained that, in the matter of the sins, ethics and theology diverge from one another.133 There was nothing new, however, in Nathan’s application of the method of the Aristotelian golden mean to the subject of the deadly sins and the cardinal virtues. He might have come across it in the sermon by Robert Grosseteste (translator of and commentator on the Ethics), “Deus est quo nihil melius cogitari potest,” in which the author—contrary to the scholastics, who employed general Aristotelian foods.” On further views regarding gluttony, and particularly the aspect of health in The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris), see Hill, “ ‘Ooze of Gluttony,’ ” 66. 132 See Wenzel, “Seven Deadly Sins,” 3–12. 133 See Wenzel, Sin of Sloth, 66. DISTRIBUTION 252 R. BEN-SHALOM premises but rejected the idea of the golden mean—adopted the method of the intermediate path and ordered the virtues and sins as follows: 134 virtus: humiliatio exultatio patientia largitas occupatio abstinentia continentia superbia invidia ira cupiditas accidia gula luxuria vitia: hypocrisis pusillanimitas negligentia prodigalitas curiositas evacuatio insensibilitas Nathan differs from Grosseteste, however, in the various subjects he treats, 135 and Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ—despite its Aristotelian approach—is closer in spirit and iconography of the sins and virtues to Christian pastoral, homiletic, penitential and catechetical texts, alphabetical distinctions, exempla collections, and anthologies of moral meditations and images, 136 than to the works of Grosseteste, Aquinas, or other scholastics. Of particular note in this context are Peraud’s Summa et virtutibus and Lorens’s Somme le Roi, which make extensive use of exempla. In terms of its length, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ can be compared to these longer works, as opposed to the numerous shorter works in the same genre. 137 In these two works, we also find an approach to the sins and virtues that resembles the one later adopted by Nathan: hundreds of biblical citations (Peraud, like Isaac Nathan, probably used a biblical concordance), 138 exemplary figures, classical authorities, and exempla. 139 Peraud’s treatise, like Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, first discusses the sins in general and then addresses each individual sin, devoting separate sections to the reasons that sin should be avoided (“Its restraints and hindrances,” in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ), its species, and remedies. 140 The principle of the golden mean also appears a number of times 134 Wenzel, “Seven Deadly Sins,” 11. Ibid., 11–12. 136 On these kind of works in the fifteenth century, see, for instance, Fritz Saxl, “A Spiritual Encyclopaedia of the Later Middle Ages,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 82–142. 137 Lists of the medieval Latin works on vices and virtues can be found in Bloomfield, Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices; and Newhauser and Bejczy, Supplement. 138 See Wenzel, Sin of Sloth, 99–102. 139 On Summa de viciis et virtutibus, which became a model for popular catechetical instruction in Latin and vernacular languages, see Wenzel, “Seven Deadly Sins,” 19–21, esp. 20; Antoine Dondaine, “Guillaume Peyraut,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 18 (1948): 184– 93; and Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 127–29. 140 See Siegfried Wenzel, “Dante’s Rationale for the Seven Deadly Sins (‘Purgatorio’ XVII),” The Modern Language Review 60 (1965), esp. 530–32, and Sin of Sloth, 76 and 99– 101. 135 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 253 in the treatise, although Aristotelian ethics play a far less important role in Peraud’s work than the classical Latin ethicists Seneca, Cicero, and Macrobius. 141 Somme le Roi also reflects the Ciceronian and Macrobian ethical school of thought, in Christian garb. Lorens’s treatment of the virtues reflects a different tradition, however—that of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he associates with the seven cardinal virtues and contrasts with the seven deadly sins, according to the following pattern: gift, virtue, sin, beatitude.142 It is thus impossible to attribute specific influence on Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ to either of these works. Moreover, despite clear Christian influences on the subject, structure, and a number of the spiritual concepts in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, the work reflects independent thought and writing on issues of both general and Jewish ethics—the product of Nathan’s scholarship and the criticalscientific spirit with which he approached all of his intellectual endeavors. Among the topics for further study raised by Wenzel is the question of whether the deadly sins were ever incorporated into an ethical or psychological system that remained fully Aristotelian. Wenzel thought that an answer might lie in one or more of the many commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics, produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.143 It would thus be interesting to ascertain whether the Hebrew treatise Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ might offer an unequivocal answer to the question, revealing a fully Aristotelian ethical system (albeit a critical one with regard to certain details), 144 based on the seven capital vices and four cardinal virtues. THE GENERAL ETHICAL CONCEPTION COMMON TO JEWS AND CHRISTIANS The internal ethical discussion of each of the sins and virtues in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ reflects, alongside the contemplation of Aristotelian ethics, a deep familiarity with Jewish and Christian ethics, and an attempt to merge— critically and to the extent possible—three worlds: the Jewish, the Christian, and the philosophical. We find an example of this in Nathan’s discussion of the virtue of temperance: 141 Dondaine, “Guillaume Peyraut,” 189–90. See Rosemund Tuve, “Notes on the Virtues and Vices: Part II,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 27 (1964): 42–46; Bloomfield, “Preliminary List,” 259–79; Dondaine, “Guillaume Peyraut,” 168–231, esp. 189–90; and Saxl, “Spiritual Encyclopaedia,” esp. 82–84; 143 Wenzel, “Seven Deadly Sins,” 12. See also Sin of Sloth, 66: “A genuinely Aristotelian classification of vices, in which each of the virtues treated in the Nicomachean Ethics would be flanked by two vices (excess and lack), is usually ventilated as an objection to Gregory’s seven capital vices but refuted because of the greater authority of the Church Father.” 144 See, for example, p. 216 above, regarding envy, and 233–34, regarding pride. 142 DISTRIBUTION 254 R. BEN-SHALOM The fourth chapter, on the categories of virtues subsumed in the primary virtue of temperance. They are primarily affection and love and friendship and desire and will. And their opposites [are] enmity, hatred, strife, loathing, and despising. And according to the Sage [Aristotle], in book eight of the Ethics, friendship and affection—which are among the activities of the soul, the virtues, and the desire to obtain the good—entail reciprocity, whether equal or proportional. And this definition includes friendship between those who are alike, such as comrades, partners, or brothers, and friendship between those of unequal position, such as a father for a son, a man for a woman, and a master for a slave, and vice versa. And it also comprises the three kinds of friendship and affection he identified—for the sake of virtue, for the sake of pleasure, or for the sake of usefulness—without assigning particular characteristics to each. And he defined falling in love (hitʾahavut), in the Rhetoric, as the recognition by each person of his desire to obtain the good for the other. He also put a condition neither concealing anything from the other, as it is written, “You hate me and do not love me” [Judg. 14:16], “Have you posed a riddle to the children of my people, and did not tell me?” [ibid.], “How can you say I love you, when your heart is not with me?” [ibid., 16:15]. And the language of Holy Scripture would appear to agree with this definition, as it is written, “for he loved him as he loved himself,” and [God], blessed be he, also commanded, “And you shall love your fellow man as yourself,” that is to say to wish good for the other as one would wish it for oneself. And the Sage distinguished between love that is for the sake of virtue, which is properly called love, and all other [love], which is incidental. And he meant that [such love] is of the highest order, and did not ascribe diverse kinds to it, for he said that the beloved is but one and not more, and that this kind [of love] is uniquely [directed] toward good and superior [people], and will not dissipate or change, like [love] for the sake of pleasure or usefulness. For when [love] is motivated by these two reasons, it may also pertain to the wicked, some of whom love others for the sake of pleasure, or usefulness. And although these three kinds [of love] appear in divine Scripture, this inquiry is of a philosophical nature and thus raises difficult questions. And the way of the laws (torot) differs, inasmuch as it commands one to love God and to love the stranger, and to treat even one’s enemies with affection. And David gloried in loving God’s Torah and his precepts, and the abode of his house and, a fortiori, that which is found in the Evangelical ethics regarding the commandment to love one’s enemies and every man without measure, unconcerned with reciprocity and equality. For concern with equality is, due to the differences of opinion in its regard, the reason that love and affection easily disappear, and it was therefore a principle of [the virtue of] temperance to mandate love and affection, even in the absence of a [specific] law, for the principle of similarity whereby human beings are called brothers and friends and fellows, as [noted] above. And we desire many friends to help and benefit [us], and to rescue [us] from what the days may bring, and from troublesome times, and not just one [friend], even of the very best [kind], for two are better [than one] and, a fortiori many, because of their inevitable necessity in life. Man’s needs will generally compel him to be political [i.e., social] in nature, each helping his fellow in seeking his needs and the things that behoove him in life and in polity of the best kind, to obtain the good and to be spared the bad, without hope of recompense in pleasure or utility. As it is written, “Better a meal of greens DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 255 where there is love, than a fatted ox where there is hatred” [Prov. 15:17] (fols. 92v–93r [emphasis mine]; see appendix, text 18). In this passage, Isaac Nathan criticizes the utilitarian Aristotelian philosophical approach to love, contrasting it with a biblical ethic, common to Jews and Christians. He cites the commandment to love the stranger (Lev. 19:34), and remarks that Scripture even demands that one show affection toward one’s foes, 145 further noting the New Testament injunction to love one’s enemies (Matt. 5:43–44; Luke 6:27–28 and 35). This can be seen as part of an attempt to delineate a broad ethical system, common to the two religions. Nathan, here, embraces a core value of Christian ethics—love of one’s enemies— which he presents as if it were an integral part of a shared religious ethic, which he calls “the way of the laws [doctrines].” The term “adherents of the law” (tori'im), which appears a number of times in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, is generally ambiguous, and although it is sometimes unclear whether it includes Christianity or not, there are places in which it is certainly used to denote adherents of both religions.146 Nathan’s approach in the above passage is particularly unusual in the context of Hebrew polemical literature, to which Nathan himself was a prominent contributor, and in which Jews generally attempted to present the distortions and errors in Christian ethical thought as running counter to nature and reason. Jesus’ exhortation, in the New Testament, to love one’s enemies, was thus rarely viewed in a positive light. Profayt Duran, for example, termed such behavior “foolish pietism,” and argued, against Christian scholars who boasted of this “perfect” ethical system of love, that it is “not worthy of the name law [doctrine]” and that its practical application would destroy any political entity. 147 Nathan, although influenced by Duran in other matters, 148 sought to accept as many of the other side’s ethical values as possible, and to present them in a positive light. 149 145 Nathan may have been referring to Prov. 27:6. See Abraham Ibn Ezra’s commentary on this verse: “Kiss the enemy strongly and profusely, rather than rebuking him, so that he will remain ensnared in his sin.” 146 For example, at the end of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ (fol. 99v): “A chapter on the reason why the ethicists and the adherents of the law devised [the] four cardinal types of virtues [among the] perfections, and the seven types of deadly sin among the vices, and with this [reason] I will conclude the treatise.” 147 Profiat Duran, Reproach of the Gentiles 10, in Kitvei pulmus le-Profiat Duran, ed. Talmage 55. 148 See, Ben-Shalom, “Meir Nativ: The First Hebrew Concordance,” 310–20. 149 See p. 206 above, on Judah Halevi and turning the other cheek. DISTRIBUTION 256 R. BEN-SHALOM Nathan’s inclusion of Christian ethical concepts in his Jewish ethical system receives both direct expression—in the adoption of a specific idea, such as loving one’s enemies, or system, such as that of the seven sins and four virtues—and indirect expression, through exempla that illustrate a given idea taken from Christian ethical discourse. An example of the latter type can be found in the introduction to Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, in which Nathan preaches consciousness of man’s nothingness and the inferiority of matter, as a deterrent to sin and a way to righteousness. The wise man should thus recognize that the body (i.e., matter) continually incites us to stray from the just path. Nathan cites a Talmudic parable, to illustrate the problem of man’s dual nature, body and soul, struggling over his heart: The [Sages of the Talmud], of blessed memory, said that body and soul may each exempt itself from judgment. The body says, “I did not know. It was my soul that placed me in the chariot of sin—in thought, deliberation, and choice. It is she who must be judged.” And the soul says, “It was my body that led me to deviate and stray from the path of reason, to follow him and satisfy his desires, for it is he that eats and drinks and partakes of pleasure” (fol. 14r; see appendix, text 19). The Talmud resolves the problem of dualism by means of a parable, in which a lame man (body) and a blind man (soul) are appointed watchmen over an orchard. The owner (God) discovers that the watchmen have been stealing from the orchard, and rejects their respective excuses—the one that he cannot walk and the other that he cannot see—placing the lame man on the blind man’s shoulders and judging them as one. The Talmud thus concludes, “So the Holy One, blessed be he, casts the soul into the body, and judges them as one.” 150 Isaac Nathan preferred to resolve the issue of the dualism of flesh and spirit by means of another exemplum, taken from contemporary discourse, rather than the Talmud: The allegorists said, “A traveler leaving a city could follow one of two paths. The one, like a broad meadow, free of stones, with every fruit tree lovely to look at and good for food, and glistening blossoms that lend fragrance and beauty to every delight and pleasure, and at its end murderers and thieves and robbers by night, who steal their fill of all that comes their way, murdering and trapping souls as well. And the second path, a rough, stony, narrow pass, in which no grass or fruit will grow, like a desolate desert and thirsty wilderness. And when the people of the city saw that all of the travelers would choose the smooth path, and that many 150 BT Sanhedrin 91a–b. See Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs 1 (Jerusalem, 1979), 223–50. The dispute between body and soul was a prominent topic in the Hebrew poetry of the Jews of Islamic Spain, particularly in the poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol. See Hayyim (Jefim) Schirmann and Ezrah Fleischer, Toledot haširah ha-ivrit bisefarad hamuslemit [The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain] (Jerusalem, 1995), 321–26. DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 257 had been killed, they built a fortified tower at the head of the two paths, and chose a certain old man from among them that he might serve them as a watchman and, standing there, caution travelers which path they should take. One day, two brothers appeared, the one wise and the other foolish. And the old watchman called to them and said, ‘This is the path you should take, and do not take the other one, for although it is smooth and pleasant, all who take it shall die, for there you will find murderers and thieves lying in wait for blood.’ And when the wise [brother] heard his words, he took the path commanded by the watchman. And his brother rebuked him and said, ‘Why should we believe this man, when our eyes behold the pleasantness and beauty of the path, and why should we abandon it to follow a road in which the unclean, the fool, the ignorant, and the ravenous beast may not pass? Why should we be misled by this man, to choose of these two paths the evil one, and to abandon the one that is plainly good, to follow a road where no one has passed?’ And the wise [brother] refused to listen to him, and the brothers bid each other farewell, and the foolish [brother] took the road that he had chosen, and the wise [brother] took the road of the watchman. After he had walked the distance of a bowshot, the wise [brother] changed his mind, out of love and compassion for his brother, and said to himself, ‘Why shall I leave my brother to walk alone, when he may encounter these murderers and they will defeat him, because he is alone, and they will kill him, because there is no one to help him, and I will have sinned to my brother for all time. It is better that I should accompany him, and perhaps together we may escape their hands.’ And he called out in a loud voice to his brother, to wait for him until he should come, and the two walked together as a pair on the road against which the watchman had cautioned. When they came to its end, they were discovered by the murderers, who captured them and left them bound under one of the bushes, to await their slaughter. And the wise one said to his brother, ‘What have I done to you, my brother, that you have brought me to this point, and did not listen to the watchman who cautioned us, and were seduced by the pleasantness and delight of this road, to fall into the hands of these murderers? And the iniquity, my brother, is yours, for I would have listened to the watchman. And had the punishment befallen you alone, it would have come as no surprise, but why should I suffer, and why should this befall me? [Only] for the sake of my love and compassion for you, who are my brother, flesh of my flesh, because, were it not for this, I would have listened and been spared.’ And his brother replied, ‘The iniquity that is sin is yours as well, for you listened to my counsel and abandoned that of the old man, and you knew that I was a fool, and that from my youth I have been seduced by human pleasures. You too are deserving of punishment, because you were seduced to follow me, in my foolishness, and my ill choice.’ And the two were slaughtered together, the wise [brother] and the fool, each dying for his own sin. To put ends to words, one should not listen to the counsel of matter, to its foolishness and its ill temper, for the counselor is wicked in his own way, and his own counsel will fling him down, and he will be wholly unsuccessful” (fols. 14r–15r; see appendix, text 20). The wise brother represents the soul, and the foolish brother the body. The old watchman represents the moralist who advises people on the correct moral path, and the murderers, thieves, and robbers by night the various sins that lie DISTRIBUTION 258 R. BEN-SHALOM in wait for human beings throughout their lives. The moral is that one must heed the moralist’s advice and choose the difficult and rough path free of sin, and that choosing the smooth and beautiful path will eventually result in death, since the murderers who represent the deadly sins will lead the soul to eternal destruction. This example is emblematic of Isaac Nathan’s literary method. He was undoubtedly familiar with the exemplum of the lame man and the blind man cited in the Talmud, as it appears in the very same passage he notes, concerning the body and the soul. Nevertheless, he chose to illustrate the solution to the problem by means of an exemplum taken not from the realm of Talmudic or Rabbinic discourse, but from the exemplary treatment of sin in general, and the seven deadly sins in particular, in Christian circles at the time. The literary motif of pilgrimage and travel as representations of human life is very old, 151 and medieval examples in which the allegorical device of pilgrimage was combined with the method of the deadly sins can be found in Raoul de Houdenc’s Le Songe d’enfer and Le Songe de paradis (France, late twelfth to early thirteenth century), in Rutebeuf’s Le Voie de paradis (midthirteenth century), and Jehan de la Mote’s La Voie d’enfer et de paradis, (fourteenth century), in which the pilgrim encounters a number of the deadly sins on the road to hell, and the virtues on the road to paradise. 152 In the years 1330–55 it appears in two versions of the Pèlerinage, by the Cistercian Guillaume Deguileville: Le Pèlerinage de vie humaine, and a subsequent English version, by John Lydgate. After extensive preparations, the pilgrim arrives at a crossroads, comprising two roads separated by a fence. He mistakenly chooses the path of idleness, along which he encounters the seven sins. 153 Nathan’s exemplum belongs to another genre, and the symbolism of the sins is not as developed and varied as in the works in which each of the seven sins constitutes a station or obstacle in the pilgrim’s path. Nevertheless, it should be seen as part of the same discourse of allegorical pilgrimage, which was highly developed in Nathan’s immediate surroundings, particularly at the Provençal court of Good King René of Anjou. 154 Nathan need not have been 151 See Siegfried Wenzel, “The Pilgrimage of Life as a Late Medieval Genre,” Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973): 370–88. 152 See Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, 132–35 and 396 n.100. 153 See Wenzel, Sin of Sloth, 123–26, and 241 n.129. The motif of the seven sins as stations along the road to hell also appears in the anonymous, fragmentary, Anglo-Norman Petite sume des set pechés morteus. See Newhauser, Treatise on Vices and Virtues, 158–59. 154 On Isaac Nathan’s presumed connections to King René, see Daniel Poirion, “L’allégorie dans Le livre du Cuer d’amours espris de René d’Anjou,” Travaux de linguistique et de literature 2 (1971): 51–64; Ben-Shalom, “Christian Art”; and Danielle Iancu-Agou, Juifs et DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 259 familiar, specifically, with the works of the French poets, as a similar parable of choosing the right path was already part of a religious disputation between Meir bar Simeon of Narbonne and an anonymous Christian in the second half of the thirteenth century; 155 Nathan did, however, participate in the allegorical discourse concerning the sins and may have heard this or a similar exemplum in one of the mendicants’ sermons, just as he may have heard it from a Jewish preacher or come across it in Jewish literature.156 Further passages in Nathan’s treatise also reflect the author’s approach to human beings in general, making no distinction between Jews and Christians, and emphasizing their shared mentality. Among the reasons for avoiding the deadly sins, Nathan includes the belief common to adherents of “the divine laws” in reward and punishment. He notes that even those who question religious faith do not reject the concept of retribution, but respect it—if only for its social utility, or as a result of peer pressure. Most people who follow in the path of “the laws,” whether out of a sense of true faith or out of hypocrisy, disparage and condemn those who violate the religious precepts. All peoples agree that one’s good name is all that remains after death, and that there is nothing of greater importance. All thus conduct dignified burial ceremonies in which they praise and honor the dead. In matters of ethics, Nathan would appear to have found far more similarity than difference, frequently referring to “most human beings” (ha-ʾenoši'im) in his treatise, i.e., even to “people who do not belong to the community of believers.” 157 The idea of a person’s “good name” remaining after death is reiterated a number of times in Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ. On one of these occasions, Nathan elaborates: Although passing and death affect human individualities, immortality may be achieved in three tangible ways, beyond that of the intellectual (muṥkal) soul, which no one has seen but God: 1) By leaving behind a blessing—seed blessed of the Lord. . . . 2) By leaving behind a name and a memory forever, for great deeds, desirable in the eyes of God and men, such as the victory of knights, the heroes of yore, men of renown, whose stories can be found in the books of the canon [history] writers (qʾanoniqʾaṥ) of Rome and France, lest they be forgotten. Or the actions of princes who rebuild ruins and [construct] fortresses, temples and towers, neophytes en Provence: L;exemple d'Aix à travers le destin de Régine Abram de Draguignan (1469-1525) (Paris, 2001), 98–100. 155 Meir Hameili, Milḥemet miṣvah [A Holy War] 3.1, in W. K. Herskowitz, “Judeo-Christian Dialogue in Provence as Reflected in Milhemet Mitzva of R. Meir Hameili” (Ph.D. diss., Yeshiva University, New York, 1974), 140–42. 156 See, for example, a similar exemplum in Larissa Taylor, Soldiers of Christ: Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France (New York, 1992), 68–69. 157 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fols. 10r–13r. The dignified burial of the dead as an important universal value is also reflected in the exemplum about the king of France. See above, text 15. DISTRIBUTION 260 R. BEN-SHALOM to make for themselves a glorious eternal name, that majesty and honor might call their names upon the earth. 3) The books and treatises of sages that illuminate the darkness of doubt that may trouble the minds of those who come after them, and the conception of new works and methods that others had not considered, in which wise readers will delight, and their innermost parts will rejoice. And as they speak uprightness and see innovations they had not contemplated, they will bless him who made them and evoke their originator, for his name will be exalted forever and ever. 158 The three types of perpetual collective memory, according to Nathan, are descendants, outstanding socio-political achievement, and innovative books of wisdom. The act of memory, in the long term, thus requires social distinction. A political good name acquired by means of exploits on the field of battle requires historical documentation in the chronicles, or the secular and religious construction of fortresses and churches, forever bearing the name of their aristocratic founder. For medieval Jews, the possibilities of self-perpetuation were undoubtedly limited to descendents and books. Nevertheless, Nathan did not restrict the scope of his writing to the direct experiences of the Jewish minority. His broad literary horizons also extended to the culture of the Christian majority and, as an active participant in urban and intellectual life in Provence, he viewed res gestae and public construction as legitimate vehicles of collective memory, even if Jews were prevented from using them. CONCLUSION It is known that Jewish intellectuals in Italy, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, adopted Christian theological and ethical methods. Leon (Judah Aryeh) Modena’s Ṣemaḥ ṣaddiq [Flower of the Virtuous] (1600), for example, reproduced the Christian catechism originally published in the wellknown medieval florilegium Fior di virtù, and Abraham Yagel’s Leqaḥ ṭov [Good Instruction] copied a catechism by the Jesuit scholar Peter Canisius. 159 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ demonstrates that the process began much earlier and in another geographical region. The explicit incorporation of Christian theology and ethics into Jewish ethical thought was a significant development—attributable, on the one hand, to the unusual personality and courage of one fifteenth-century leader of Provençal Jewry, but also to a long-term cultural process, to which many Provençal scholars had contributed over the years, in158 Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, fol. 83r; see appendix, text 21. Robert (Reuven) Bonfil, “The Libraries of the Jews of Italy between the Middle Ages and the Modern Era” [Hebrew], Pe'amim 52 (1992): 8. 159 DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 261 cluding various members of the Ibn Tibbon family, Jacob Anatoli, Menahem ha-Meiri, Jacob ben Makhir, Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, and many others. 160 It was this cultural-intellectual process in Provence that enabled Isaac Nathan to arrive at his conclusions regarding possible theological and ethical cooperation between Jews and Christians. Jacob Katz examined the shared values that guided the customs and rituals of medieval Jewish and Christian societies, concluding that in the absence of a common source of moral authority, the relationship between the two societies could not be based on a mutually accepted value system. Jews and Christians necessarily differentiated between inward and outward ethics. Jewish ethicists rarely sought to formulate such common values, at most admonishing their audiences and readers to remember their responsibilities as members of a religious minority. The approach adopted by Menahem ha-Meiri of Perpignan was, according to Katz, a product of the new synthesis between philosophy and the Halakhic traditions of Ashkenaz and Provence. Ha-Meiri was one of the Provençal rationalists who embraced the Greco-Arab philosophical tradition, as well as a Halakhist of the Ashkenazi school. Like the Tosafists (Halakhic leaders in northern France and Germany), ha-Meiri strove to reconcile these different traditions and, in his Halakhic rulings, sought to accommodate prevailing religious practice. In his approach to Christianity, however, he deviated from the dominant Halakhic view, clearly establishing, on a fundamental level, that neither Christians nor Muslims should be considered idolators. His tolerant approach is reflected in the Halakhic categories he created, to distinguish between the non-Jews of Talmudic times, and those of his day. He referred to the non-Jews of his generation as “the nations that are bound by the ways of religion and accept divinity,” and to those of Talmudic times as “the ancient nations that were not bound by the ways of religion.” This definition afforded positive, religious standing to his non-Jewish contemporaries. The concept of “bound nations” derived not from Halakhah, but from rationalist philosophy and theology. 161 160 See Daniel J. Lasker, “Christianity, Philosophy and Polemic in Jewish Provence” [Hebrew], Zion 68 (2003): 313–33; and Ram Ben-Shalom, “The Tibbonides’ Heritage and Christian Culture: Provence, c.1186–c.1470,” in Des Tibbonides à Maïmonide. Rayonnement des Juifs andalous en pays d’Oc médiéval, Colloque international Montpellier, 13–14 décembre 2004, ed. Danièle Iancu-Agou (Paris, 2009), 109–20. 161 Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (London, 1961), 56–63 and 114–28, and “Religious Tolerance in the method of R. Menahem ha-Meiri in Halakhah and Philosophy” [Hebrew], Zion 18 (1953): 15– 30; and Menahem ben Solomon ha-Meiri, Beit ha-beḥirah [Chosen House], ʿAvodah Zarah, ed. Abraham Sofer (Jerusalem, 1943/4), 46 and 59. On the debate in the literature concerning the DISTRIBUTION 262 R. BEN-SHALOM Ha-Meiri, however, was only one figure, within a broader circle of Provençal Jews, whose thought displays a similarity to that of parallel circles in Christian society, and in whose views we find the seeds of religious tolerance. 162 Katz described the social milieu that produced the tolerant views of enlightened Halalkhists. This enlightened circle grounded the principles of Judaism in the prevailing philosophical approaches of the day, and thus felt a certain affinity with Christian and Muslim intellectuals with similar philosophical interests. The exchanges that ensued created a certain sense of commonality (especially in matters of faith and ethics), and members of these circles tended to portray Judaism in light of the values they shared with enlightened Christians. 163 On the other hand, but in the same context, these views of Jacob Katz, see Ephraim E. Urbach, “Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri’s Theory of Tolerance: Its Origin and Limits” [Hebrew], in Perakim be-toldot ha-ḥevra ha-yehudit biYemei-ha-beinayim u-va'et ha-ḥadaša mukdašim li- professor Jacob Katz [Studies in the History of Jewish Society in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Period Presented to Professor Jakob Katz on His Seventy-Fifth Birthday], ed. Emanuel Etkes and Yosef Salmon (Jerusalem, 1980), 34–44; Israel M. Ta-Shma, “ ‘Their Festivals’: A Study on the Development of Halakhah in the Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 47 (1977/8): 197–215; Jacob Katz, “Remarks on ‘Their festivals’ ” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 48 (1978/9): 374–76; Israel M. Ta-Shma, “A Remark on the Remark” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 49 (1979/80): 218–19; Shlomo Eidelberg, “A String of Remarks” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 52 (1982/3): 647–50; Jacob Katz, Halakhah ve-Qabbalah – Meḥqarim be-toldot dat Yiṥraʾel ʿal medoreha ve-ziqatah ha-ḥevratit [Halakhah and Kabbalah: Studies in the History of the Jewish Religion, its Various Faces and Social Relevance] (Jerusalem, 1984), 307–10; Gerald J. Blidstein, “R. Menahem ha-Meiri’s Attitude Toward Gentiles: Between Aplogetics and Internalization” [Hebrew], Zion 51 (1985/6), and “Maimonides and Meiri on the Legitimacy of Non-Judaic Religion,” in Scholars and Scholarship: The Interaction Between Judaism and Other Cultures, The Bernard Revel Graduate School Conference Volume, ed. Leo Landman (New York, 1990), 27–35, esp. 33–35; David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish Justification (New York, 1989), 53–55; Moshe Halbertal, Bein Torah le-ḥokhmah. Rabi Menaḥem ha-Meʾiri u-veʿalei ha-Halakhah ha-Maimonim be-Provans [Between Torah and Wisdom: Rabbi Menahem ha-Meiri and the Maimonidean Halakhists in Provence] (Jerusalem, 2000), 80–108; Stern, Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture, 85–93 (n. 11 above); and Yaakov Elman, “Meiri and the Non-Jew: A Comparative Investigation,” in New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter (Leiden, 2012), 265–96. 162 Joseph Shatzmiller, “Contacts et échanges entre savants juifs et chrétiens a Montpellier vers 1300,” in Juifs et judaïsme de Languedoc, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 12 (1977): 337–44; David Berger, “Christians, Gentiles and the Talmud: A Fourteenth-Century Jewish Response to the Attack on Rabbinic Judaism,” in Religionsgesprache im Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (Wiesbaden, 1992), 115–30, esp. 130. 163 See, for example, Menahem ben Aaron ben Zerah, Ṣedah la-derekh [Provisions for the Journey], 1.1.32 (Jerusalem, 1987/8), 40: “Not that we should say that those who are not Jews do not have souls, as many have said of us, and this is manifest foolishness, for every human being bears the image [of God], because that is what God, blessed be he, wished. And as he wished to hold him dearer than all the other animals, so he wished to hold Israel dearer than all DISTRIBUTION JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES 263 scholars played a prominent role in anti-Christian polemics, publishing polemical works and actively participating in disputations with Christians.164 Isaac Nathan’s intellectual output was an integral part of this phenomenon. Like ha-Meiri, Nathan also wrote a short treatise on repentance, 165 and the realm of religious polemic was, as noted, the focal point of much of his work. Unlike ha-Meiri, Nathan did not address matters of Halakhah. Like ha-Me'iri, however, he sought to establish universal moral principles. The extensive commercial interaction between Jews and Christians in Provence 166 demanded an intellectual-social solution to the problem of double ethical standards. A work like Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ offered such a solution, in the form of a shared value system—rooted in the Christian theological method of the seven deadly sins and the four virtues, but devoid of Christology, and therefore acceptable to Jews as well. The shared value system was developed by means of the exempla stories, taken both from Jewish, Midrashic tradition, and from Western European popular and high culture common to Christians and Jews alike. Nathan grounded his ethics in biblical sources common to both religions, and in Aristotelian ethics, widely embraced in both societies. This innovative approach, which could easily have aroused considerable opposition, benefited from the author’s prestige, as a prominent leader of Provençal Jewry, and a well-known polemicist, defender of his people against Christian missionary efforts. The popularity of Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ never extended beyond the limited, intellectual circle of Provençal Jewry. This may have been due, in part, to its radical approach, although its lack of success should probably be attributed primarily to the expulsion of the Jews of Provence (around 1500), and their dispersal throughout the Jewish diaspora, at a time of general upheaval, in the wake of the expulsion from Spain (1492). After 1500, the vast majority of Jews, including those expelled from Provence, lived in the Muslim world, particularly in the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Attempts to bridge the gap between Jewish and Christian values thus became far less relevant than in the past. Later, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ appears to have attracted the attention of Hebraists, as witnessed by the 1633 correspondence between Johannes Buxtorf (the younger) and Jacob Roman—a Jewish book dealer from Constantinople. the ancient nations, and that is why he gave them a Torah with many precepts, that they might approach active intellect. And this depends upon the extent of their engagement in Torah and study, and nothing else. And if one of the nations engages in Torah and the precepts as required of him, he is greater than one of our people who does not engage in Torah and the precepts as required of him.” 164 Lasker, “Christianity, Philosophy and Polemic,” esp. 333. 165 Oxford, Bodleian Library Reggio 21 (Neubauer 2232), fols. 110v–111r. 166 See Stouff, “Activités et professions,” 57–77. DISTRIBUTION ‫‪R. BEN-SHALOM‬‬ ‫‪264‬‬ ‫‪The title Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, appears, among other works by Isaac Nathan, in a‬‬ ‫‪list of books that Roman sent to Buxtorf. 167‬‬ ‫‪APPENDIX‬‬ ‫‪Isaac Nathan, Meʾameṣ ko'aḥ, Moscow, Russian State Library MS Guenzburg, no. 113/1.‬‬ ‫‪ .1‬מאמץ כח‪ ,‬כ"י גינצבורג‪ ,‬מוסקבה‪ ,‬הספריה הלאומית הרוסית‪ ,1/113 ,‬א ע"ב – ב ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"הכונה בזה המאמר ביאור התכונות הנפשיות והמדות‪ ,‬מהן הנקראות כחות שלמויות ומעלות והרעות‬ ‫הנקראות חסרונות‪ .‬כי לא ראינו לקודמים אשר הגיעו אלינו דבריהם בזה מאמר נשלם‪ ,‬וכמעט שלא דברו‬ ‫בו כלל עם היותו שרש גדול בחיי האדם ]‪ [.. .‬ואם ימצא לקודמים הערה או רמז‪ ,‬הוא במקומות מפוזרים‬ ‫בספריהם שלא יורגש התועלת ממנו‪ ,‬אם לא עם קבוצם וחבורם ושומם לאגדה אחת ]‪ [.. .‬ומה שהפליג‬ ‫החכם במדות העיון באלה הדברים לא ירוץ הקורא בו לעמקו כי סתום וחתום הוא‪ ,‬זולתי למי שנסה‬ ‫ספריו והרגיל הרגל עמקי עיוניו ומופתיו"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .2‬מאמץ כח‪ 2 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 3‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"על כן אמרתי להמציא בזה מאמר נפרד אכלול בו ראשונה כל השבע תכונות הכוללות המניעות בעליהן‬ ‫אל האבדון הנצחי קראום בעלי האמונה החדשה שבע חטאת מות‪ .‬והם במדרגת סוגים כוללים מקיפים כל‬ ‫האזהרות התוריות‪ .‬כי עם היות זאת החלוקה בלתי נמצאת בכל ספרינו הנה אין להמנע לצאת בעקבות‬ ‫זולתנו במה שנמצאהו נאות ונכון ]‪ [.. .‬ולכן למה שהחלוקה מאלה הסוגים נכונה ומתוקנת‪ ,‬טוב להמשך‬ ‫אחריהם להיות העיון הכולל נבחר בנפשו כי הם חסרונות יולדו מהם כל העברות‪ ,‬ושבו סבות קרובות‬ ‫להם ועם המאמר בם יתבארו מקביליהם והפכיהם‪ .‬ואחרי כן יבנה המאמר בד' אבות המדות הראשיות‬ ‫שהם גם כן כמו סוגים כוללים לכל המצות התוריות והם שלמויות כוללים וסבות להם ובהם יתוארו‬ ‫בעליהם בשלמות אנושי ]‪ [.. .‬ועמהם יתבארו מקביליהם והפכיהם"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .3‬מאמץ כח‪ 39 ,‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"הנה החכם גדרה בשהיא דאגה תקרה לאדם מפני הצלחת הזולת וטוב מזלו‪ .‬ועוד התנה ואמר והיתה‬ ‫אותה הדאגה מהמקנא‪ ,‬אינו למה שיכסוף שיהיה שלו אותו הטוב לבד או יסור מהמקונא ויהיה שלו‪ ,‬אבל‬ ‫שיסור מהזולת‪ ,‬רצוני המקונא לבד‪ .‬ואם כן איננה הקנאה אשר היא ראשית לסוגים מה מסוגי הפשעים‬ ‫כי כל עוד שלא יתאוה הטובות ההם לו לא יניענו לחטאת השגתם‪ .‬הנה הקנאה אשר בה המאמר ראוי‬ ‫שיותנה בה הפך זה התנאי‪ ,‬והוא שנאמר על צד שיכסוף הגעת הטובות ההם אליו כי יחשוב היותו ראוי‬ ‫להם יותר‪ ,‬והיא הקנאה אשר הוא אחד מהסוגים אל ]צ"ל של[ הפשעים והחטאים המביאים בעליהם אל‬ ‫המות הנצחית"‪.‬‬ ‫‪167 See M. Kayserling, “Richelieu, Buxtorf père et fils, Jacob Roman. Documents pour ser‬‬‫‪vir à l’histoire du commerce de la librairie juive au XVIIe siècle,” Revue des études juives 8‬‬ ‫‪(1884): 90. The list also includes a number of lost works by Nathan: Meʾah devarim, Mivṣar‬‬ ‫‪Yiṣḥaq, Tokheḥat maṭʿeh, and probably his concordance, as well, under the alternative title‬‬ ‫‪Yaʾir nativ. See also Adolf Neubauer, “Jacob ben Isaac Roman’s Bücherverzeichniss. Ms. Ox‬‬‫‪ford Poc. 12 (Catal. No. 2314 and Addenda),” Israelitische Letterbode 11 (1885–86): 113–93.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪265‬‬ ‫‪JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES‬‬ ‫‪ .4‬מאמץ כח‪ 2 ,‬ע"א‬ ‫"למה שכונתנו להיישיר המחשבות המעוותות והמשולחות לחסרונות אין להעמיס עליהם משא עיון‬ ‫העמוקות‪ ,‬כי די להם כי יקשיבו קשב למה שיקביל למה שהם עליו מהחסרונות ויקבלוהו וישמעו ויחדלו‬ ‫מבלתי שנחייבם בהפלגת עיון והשקפת שכל‪ ,‬ולכן יחוייב לתת הדברים האלה בתכלית הבאור והמרחב‪,‬‬ ‫ומאמרים ערבים יתענגו בם‪ ,‬והיה להם טיול ותענוג בקריאתם"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .5‬מאמץ כח‪ 3 ,‬ע"ב‬ ‫"סופר שאחד מן המליצים הצבועיים שובח‪ ,‬ויועץ למלך נתנוהו‪ .‬ויהי היום והנו בין יתר הנועדים להועץ‬ ‫בדרושי המלך והנהגת מלכותו ומלחמותיו‪ ,‬ושאלוהו עצתו‪ ,‬השיב כי יבחר לו ויקריב אליו מה שהוא‬ ‫לעזר ולהועיל למצב הפרסומיי הכולל‪ ,‬וכבוד ותפארת והוד לגובה רום המלוכה וצדק ויושר בין‬ ‫המדיניים ואמונת הקיום‪ ,‬בחזוק הברית אשר למחוז ולאישיו עם המלך מימי עולם ומשנים קדמוניות‪,‬‬ ‫ואמץ כח וגבורה נגד המשחיתים והתמדת השלום בכל הפלך ובאישיו‪ .‬ובדבר החלקי אשר היה בו‬ ‫הדרישה לא היה פוצה פה כל מאומה‪ ,‬כי חשב כי עם דבריו הכוללים יתבאר הדרוש ההוא‪ ,‬ויהיו‬ ‫מספיקים לתת עצה‪ ,‬ודבר הלום וכמעט חשב היותו מפליא על יתר הנועדים‪ .‬ויגרשוהו המלך מהסתפח‬ ‫בנחלת עצתו כי לא דבר נכונה כיתר הנועדים הפורטים על פי חלקיות הדרושים ופרטיהם"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .6‬מאמץ כח‪ 99 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 100‬ע"א‬ ‫"אמנם חלוקת החסרונות לשבע חטאת מות היו לשבעה ראשים‪ ,‬כי הדברים הנבחרים והטובות‬ ‫הנכספות ונדרשות לעצמותם הם שלש‪ :‬המועיל‪ ,‬והערב‪ ,‬והיפה‪ .‬הנה החטא במעט הכוסף של כלם‪ ,‬זו‬ ‫בחירת המנוחה עליהם‪ ,‬יוליד חטא העצלה‪ .‬רב התשוקה אל המועיל יוליד כילות‪ .‬רב התשוקה אל‬ ‫הערב‪ ,‬למה שהוא בשני חושים בטעם ובמשוש‪ ,‬יוליד זוללות ונאוף‪ .‬וכל אלה הם בבחינת תארי האדם‬ ‫בעצמו‪ ,‬מבלתי הבחין ענינו במהו מדיני בטבע‪ .‬אמנם רב התשוקה ביפה‪ ,‬שיובן על אמתתו‪ ,‬רצוני שהוא‬ ‫ההצלחה‪ ,‬לא יוליד חטא או חסרון אבל הוא שלמות‪ .‬אמ']ר[ יפיפית מבני אדם וגו' ]תהלים‪ ,‬מה‪ ,‬ג[ על‬ ‫כן ברכך אלהים לעולם ]תהלים‪ ,‬שם[‪ ,‬כלומ']ר[ למה שבחרת בטוב התכליתיי כופה בחק האנושיים‬ ‫הגיעך הטוב הנצחיי‪ .‬הנה החטא בו הוא מצד מה שיטעה האדם בו בעצמו‪ ,‬שיחשב שהוא בו ואיננו‬ ‫בזולתו או באחד משני אלה‪ ,‬ויוליד גאוה‪ .‬ובכלם יחטא מצד מה שיקשה לו מציאות הטובות האלה‬ ‫לזולת‪ ,‬ואם ישער מציאותם בו ]בזולת[ לבלי חק‪ ,‬יוליד כעס‪ ,‬ואם לא יבחין אם הם לבלי חק אם לא‪,‬‬ ‫ויקשה לו מציאותם לזולת‪ ,‬יוליד קנאה‪.‬‬ ‫הנה לאלה הפנים והבחינות המציאו חכמי התורות ובעלי המוסר ארבע אבות המדות הראשיות ושבעה‬ ‫מיני חטאת מות הכוללים כל החסרונות‪ .‬או אולי יתכן שחסרון הגאוה יולד מזה הצד ‪ -‬וזה כי היפה יובן‬ ‫בפרסום שהוא הכבוד ורב התשוקה אליו יוליד גאוה‪ ,‬וכל שכן כשיקשה לו מציאותו בזולת‪ .‬ועם זה היה‬ ‫סבת כל השבע מצד מעוט התשוקה לטובות‪ ,‬או הפלגת הכוסף להם‪ ,‬או מה שיקשה מציאותם לזולת‪.‬‬ ‫הנה זה כלל מה שרציתי לסדר בזה המאמר ממה שלקטתי משבלי עמרי אמרי נועם הפילוסופים בעלי‬ ‫המוסר‪ ,‬ומה שהסכים בו המכתב הקדוש האלהי ורז"ל ]רבותינו זכרונם לברכה["‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .7‬מאמץ כח‪ 7 ,‬ע"א‬ ‫"אמרו המושלים לקח רועה אחד גור הזאב תכף אחר שנולד וגדלו תוך עדרו ונרצה לו עד שבטח בו‬ ‫ושמו שומר לעדרו‪ .‬ויהי היום ויטרף הצאן‪ ,‬ויאמר לו הרועה מי הגיד לך שאביך זאב?"‬ ‫‪ .8‬מאמץ כח‪ 18 ,‬ע"ב‪.‬‬ ‫"ועל זאת התכונה יסובו כל הפשעים הנעשים בזדון ובמרד ]‪ [.. .‬גם תחתיה הנקימה והשנאה ורב פעלי‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪R. BEN-SHALOM‬‬ ‫‪266‬‬ ‫האכזריות‪ ,‬עם היותם יותר מתיחסות לתכונת הכעס‪ ,‬ובארו ז"ל ‪ 168‬שהוא קשה בחברת בני האדם מכל‬ ‫התכונות הרעות ולא יסבלוה האנושיים ולהפליג בזה אמרו שגם האל לא יתכן לו המציאות עמו כל שכן‬ ‫התחברו אליו ]‪ [.. .‬ואין בכל יתר התכונות הרעות שיניעו בעליהם אל הכפירה וההריסה וההתנכרות‬ ‫מהאל כתכונת הגאוה"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .9‬מאמץ כח‪ 20 ,‬ע"ב‬ ‫"ודע שלכן שמוהו ראשון לכל יתר החסרונות כי הוא ראש לכלם‪ ,‬ומביא בעליו לנפול באחרים‬ ‫ולהמשכם‪ ,‬וביחוד כי לא ירגיש בזה החסרון אך יחשבהו שלמות וגדלת הנפש וישתקע בו‪ ,‬כי לא יכירהו‬ ‫אך יתעה בו כי בחרהו לשלמותו‪ ,‬ולכן יקשה לבעליו להוסר מדרכו ולסור ממנו גם לא שיוכיחוהו‬ ‫בתכליות‪ ,‬כי ינסהו ויכשל בו ויעשה ולא יצליח‪ ,‬ובזולת זה לא ישמע ולא יחדל"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .10‬מאמץ כח‪ 15 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 16‬ע"א‬ ‫"שם זאת המדה והתכונה בלשון הקדש הוא גאוה ]‪ [.. .‬ושם התאר בה הוא גבה לב ]‪ [.. .‬והקצה אשר לה‬ ‫בתכלית המרחק הוא השפלות‪ ,‬ובשם התאר יקרא בלשוננו ובלשונם ז"ל שפל רוח ]‪ [.. .‬והאמצעי אשר‬ ‫בין שתי הקצוות יקרא ענוה בלשוננו ובלשונם ז"ל‪ ,‬והוא הכח שניחסהו שלמות לבעליו והוא הנבחר‬ ‫והמשובח בכל מקום אשר יזכיר את שמו המכתב הקדוש"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .11‬מאמץ כח‪ 16 ,‬ע"ב‬ ‫"גדרה ‪ -‬החכם גדרה בהלצה‪ ,‬מאמר ב‪ ,‬בשהיא דאגה לטוב ענין יהיה לזולת לבלי חק‪ .‬והנה על זה הגדר‬ ‫מצודים גדולים‪ ,‬ובאר שהטובות שידאג הגאה עליהם הם הטובות המוצאות לאדם מחוץ‪ ,‬לא מה שיגיעהו‬ ‫מהרצון והבחירה‪ ,‬כמו שלא ידאג במציאות הפכם לו‪ .‬והפלא מזה הגדר‪ ,‬כי מצאנו עליזי גאותך ]צפניה‪,‬‬ ‫ג‪ ,‬יא[‪] ,‬גם[ כי יראה מענין הגאה שלהיותו בז לזולת לא יחשב לו שלמות או מעלה ולא ישערהו‪ ,‬וכאשר‬ ‫אי אפשר לו להכחיש מציאותם לזולת ייחסהו לטוב ההזדמן והצלחת המקרה‪ ,‬לא שיהיה ראוי לו‪ ,‬וכאשר‬ ‫יבצר ממנו ידאג ויאנח וייחסהו לקשי יומו כי יחשוב היותו יותר ראוי לטובות על כל אשר לפניו‪ ,‬כחק‬ ‫משחקי הקוביא המאבדים ממונותיהם לסכלותם באמון השחוק ובחשבונו יאמרו שזה מהצלחת המקרה‬ ‫לזולת והפכו בו‪ ,‬והוא לא ידע כי בנפש אולתו וסכלותו הוא סמכתהו‪ ,‬ולכן יראה היות גדרי הגאוה ציור‬ ‫והתפארות המתגאה בנפשו היותו וחשבו לעצמו היותו נשגב גדול המעלה והשעור‪ ,‬ובזולת ישער הפך זה‪,‬‬ ‫ולכן יבוז ויקטין הזולת ויתנשא וישתרר עליו‪ .‬וקצת מהתוריים גדרוה בשהיא הקטנת הזולת ובזיונו‪.‬‬ ‫וגדרי הפכיה ומקבילה הם הפכי הגדר הזה ומקבילו"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .12‬משלי‪ ,‬כד‪ ,‬כה‪ .‬מאמץ כח‪ 16 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 17‬ע"א‬ ‫”מיניה‪ .‬לפי הנמצא במכתב האלהי בלשון הקדש הם ח'‪ .‬א‪ .‬הגאות במקום אמר גאון הירדן ]זכריה יא‪,‬‬ ‫ג[‪ .‬בגאון גליך ]איוב‪ ,‬לח‪ ,‬יא[‪ .‬גאות עשן ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬ט‪ ,‬יז[‪ .‬ב‪ .‬בעז ונצחון‪ .‬אמר ואשר חרב גאותך‬ ‫]דברים‪ ,‬לג‪ ,‬כט[‪ .‬גאון עזכם ]ויקרא‪ ,‬כו‪ ,‬יט; יחזקאל‪ ,‬כד‪ ,‬כא[‪ .‬גאוה אפיקי מגנים ]איוב‪ ,‬מא‪ ,‬ז[‪ .‬גאון‬ ‫יעקב אשר אהב ]תהלים‪ ,‬מז‪ ,‬ה[‪ .‬ג‪ .‬בעדי ותפארת‪ .‬אמר לגאון ולתפארת ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬ד‪ ,‬ב[‪ .‬תפארת גאון‬ ‫כשדים ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬יג‪ ,‬יט[‪ .‬גאון כל צבי ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬כג‪ ,‬ט[‪ .‬וצבי עדיו לגאון שמתהו ]יחזקאל‪ ,‬ז‪ ,‬כ‪ .‬שם‬ ‫"שמהו"[‪ .‬ד‪ .‬בהסתפקות‪ .‬אמר גאון שבעת לחם ]יחזקאל‪ ,‬טז‪ ,‬מט[‪ .‬ה‪ .‬הגאות הנצחי‪ .‬אמר וכל יראה‬ ‫גאות יי' ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬כו‪ ,‬י[‪ .‬לגאון עולם ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬ס‪ ,‬טו[‪ .‬ו‪ .‬אשר יורה בהעדר היחס והערך‪ .‬אמר שירו ליי'‬ ‫‪168‬‬ ‫עיינו‪ :‬בבלי‪ ,‬סוטה‪ ,‬ה ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪267‬‬ ‫‪JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES‬‬ ‫כי גאה גאה ]שמות טו‪ ,‬כא[‪ .‬אשירה ליי' כי גאה גאה ]שמות טו‪ ,‬א[‪ .‬כלומר ‪ 169‬ההלול אינו רק על דרך‬ ‫הלשון השיריי למה שהוא מרומם על כל ברכה ותהלה כי החליט לו תאר באמת נמנע‪ ,‬זולתי על דרך‬ ‫ההשאלה והשיר‪ .‬ז‪ .‬גאון ענשו ונקמתו‪ .‬אמ' כי גאות עשה ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬יב‪ ,‬ה[‪ .‬וברוב גאונך תהרוס קמיך‬ ‫]שמות‪ ,‬טו‪ ,‬ז[‪ .‬ומהדר גאונו בקומו לערוץ הארץ ]ישעיהו ב‪ ,‬יט; ב‪ ,‬כא[‪ .‬ירעם בקול גאונו ]איוב‪ ,‬לז‪,‬‬ ‫ד[‪ .‬ח‪ .‬הנמצאת באנושיים ומיניו ח'‪ .‬א‪ .‬הנמצאת בקבוץ או באמה אמר גאון מואב ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬טז‪ ,‬ו; מח‪,‬‬ ‫כט[‪ .‬ב‪ .‬הנמצאת בראשיה ומנהיגיה‪ .‬אמר עליזי גאותך ]צפניה‪ ,‬ג‪ ,‬יא[‪ .‬ג‪ .‬הנמצאת באנשי הרוע והרשע‪.‬‬ ‫אמר מפני גאון רעים ]איוב‪ ,‬לה‪ ,‬יב[‪ .‬בגאות רשע ]תהלים י‪ ,‬ב[‪ .‬ד‪ .‬הבאה מן האולת אמר בפי אויל חטר‬ ‫גאוה ]משלי‪ ,‬יד‪ ,‬ג[‪ .‬ה‪ .‬אשר במאמרים‪ .‬אמ']ר[ דברו בגאות ]תהלים‪ ,‬יז‪ ,‬י[‪ .‬עתק בגאוה ובוז ]תהלים‪,‬‬ ‫לא‪ ,‬יט[‪ .‬ו‪ .‬אשר בעושק‪ .‬מחלק שלל את גאים ]משלי‪ ,‬טז‪ ,‬יט[‪ .‬ז‪ .‬אשר בתנועות‪ .‬אמר אל תבואני רגל‬ ‫גאוה ]תהלים‪ ,‬לו‪ ,‬יב[‪ .‬כי גבהו בנות ציון ותלכנה ]ישעיהו‪ ,‬ג‪ ,‬טז[‪ .‬ח‪ .‬אשר עם המעלה והשלמות‪ .‬אמר‬ ‫ויגבה לבו בדרכי יי' ]דברי הימים‪ ,‬ב‪ ,‬יז‪ ,‬ו[‪ .‬ולמה שהיו סוגי הגאוה ח' ומיני הסוג השמיני ח' ויראה‬ ‫שהשמיני ממנו בלתי נתעב‪ ,‬אולי כונו אל זה רז"ל בהתירם לתלמיד חכם שמיני שבשמינית‪ 170 .‬ואמרו‬ ‫ז"ל האי צורבא מרבנן דרחמו ליה בני מתא לאו משום דמעלי אלא משום דלא מוכח להו במילי‬ ‫דשמיא‪ 171 .‬ואמר ולמוכיחים ינעם"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .13‬מאמץ כח‪ 16 ,‬ע"א‬ ‫"אמנם הקצה האחרון תמצאהו נבחר ברוב מקומותיו‪ ,‬אם מצד שישימנו שם לאמצעי וימירנו בו‪ ,‬אם מצד‬ ‫מה שיראה נבחר ומשובח כשיקחהו בעליו על צד המזור להתרחק מהקצה היותר נתעב ממנו‪ ,‬כמו‬ ‫שישתמשו הרופאים באיכיות ההפכים להגיע אל השווי ]‪ [.. .‬וזה שלמה שיצר לב האדם רע מנעוריו‬ ‫ויותר נוטה לקצה האחד‪ ,‬שהוא הגאוה‪ ,‬ויוטבע בו יותר‪ ,‬והוא גדול הנזק נתעב ונאלח בעיני אלהים ואדם‪,‬‬ ‫הנה אי אפשר להעתיקו ממנו אם לא בהתמדת ההשתמשות במעשה הכניעה והשפלות‪ ,‬ועם זה ישוב אל‬ ‫האמצעי שהוא הענוה"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .14‬מאמץ כח‪ 21 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 22‬ע"א‬ ‫"גדרו‪ .‬הנה החכם גדר בנדיבות במדות‪ ,‬מאמר ד'‪ ,‬בשהוא מצוע בלקיחת הממונות ונתינתם‪ .‬ונמשך מזה‬ ‫הגדר היות הכילות והפזור יציאה מן המצוע בנתינה ובלקיחה‪ .‬ויראה היות אלה הגדרים בלתי מספיקים‪.‬‬ ‫ראשונה לפי מה שיבינו בעלי האמונות כי הם ישימו תחת חסרון הכילות הלקיחה הבלתי ראויה לבד‬ ‫נפרדת מענין הנתינה‪ ,‬וקפיצת היד נפרדת מענין הלקיחה‪ .‬ושנית כי ייוחס הכילי ויתואר בענין לא יהיה‬ ‫בו לא נתינה ולא לקיחה והוא אשר לא השליטו האלהים לאכול מקניניו ולהתענג וליהנות מהם‪ .‬שלישית‬ ‫כי איננו נאות לשום הריוח המגונה בסוג הלקיחה כי היא עם שהיא מגונה היא מחוייבת ובייחוד אצלנו‬ ‫המון התוריים שלקחנו מאמר האומר פשוט נבלתא בשוקא ולא תימר ]צ"ל תימא[ כהנא רבא אנא‪172 .‬‬ ‫וכל סוחרי הארצות וכנעניהם בספר חשבונותיהם לקחו לשון החכם כי יעשו חשבון הנתינה והלקיחה וזה‬ ‫מהם כי רב מה שיעשוהו הוא הלקיחה הבלתי ראויה ולכן יקרה ברובם השבירה והעושק ובריחת‬ ‫הבעלים‪ .‬ולזה כשנרצה שיהיה הגדר שלם אצלנו וכולל המינים‪ ,‬נמיר שם הלקיחה באסיפה ובקבוץ ושם‬ ‫הנתינה בהוצאה ונשים בין שניהם מלת או המחלקת או אם‪ .‬והיה גדר הכילות אשר בו המאמר בעצם‬ ‫וראשונה יציאה מן המצוע ונטייתו מן הנכונה אם באסיפת הממונות וקבוצם אם ביציאתם ובזבוזם‪ ,‬רצוני‬ ‫‪ 169‬כאן מצוין שנכנס קטע חסר‪ ,‬שנכתב בשוליים וקשה לקריאה‪" :‬במה שביאר הרל]ב"ג[ ]‪ [.. .‬ויי' ברך דוד‬ ‫ויאשיהו ]‪"[.. .‬‬ ‫‪ 170‬תלמוד בבלי‪ ,‬סוטה‪ ,‬ה ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 171‬תלמוד בבלי‪ ,‬כתובות‪ ,‬קה ע"ב‪ .‬שם‪" :‬דמעלי טפי"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ 172‬בבלי‪ ,‬פסחים‪ ,‬קיג ע"א; ילקוט שמעוני שופטים‪ ,‬עג‪.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪R. BEN-SHALOM‬‬ ‫‪268‬‬ ‫שיעדיף על המצוע בקבוץ או יקצר בהוצאה‪ ,‬והפך זה הפזור שהוא המקצר בקבוץ או המעדיף בהוצאה‬ ‫ובבזבוז‪ ,‬והמצוע שהוא הנדיבות שלא יטה ממנו בשניהם‪ ,‬רצוני בקבוץ ובהוצאה‪ .‬ולכן נקרא אנחנו‬ ‫הנאמנים בבריתנו ספרי הקש חשבונותינו ספרי הביאה והיציאה‪ .‬ומהכרח שלשתם‪ ,‬רצוני הכילי והנדיב‬ ‫והמפזר‪ ,‬שיעדיף הקבוץ על ההוצאה או לפחות שישוה לה‪ .‬וממה שיראה מענין אלה השמות והוראתם‬ ‫היות שם הנדיבות והכילות והפזור מבואר בצירוף יותר אל ההוצאה מאשר הם אל הקבוץ עם היות‬ ‫שלמה שלקחו התוריים הכילות סוג כולל לעברות הנה מן ההכרח שישימו להם הקבוץ הבלתי ראוי או‬ ‫הלקיחה הבלתי ראויה בגדרו‪ .‬או אולי יהיה גדרו‪ ,‬לפי הפרסום‪ ,‬האהבה אל הקנינים יותר מהראוי כי הוא‬ ‫אשר יאמר בו שהוא ראשית חטאת"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .15‬מאמץ כח‪ 25 ,‬ע"א – ע"ב‬ ‫"סופר שהיה מלך אחד בצרפת היה בטבעו כילי לעשוק אהב‪ ,‬ולהפיק מאוייו ולהתרצות לו ולמצא חן‬ ‫בעיניו היו יועציו עוזרים לרעה ועומדים על דרכים להמציא לו מיני התחבולות בהמשכת התועלות ורוב‬ ‫מעשקות‪ .‬ויהי היום ויבא למדינה אחת ממדינותיו‪ ,‬שהיה דר בה עשיר גדול מכל בני המדינה‪ ,‬מרובה‬ ‫בקנינים עד לאין מספר‪ ,‬ויועץ לקרא לו ויבא לפניו ויושיבהו לפניו במשתה היין‪ ,‬ויהי כטוב לבו ויצוהו‬ ‫להביא לו בכתב עד חדש ימים כל פרטות נכסיו וכל קנינו ורכושו לא יכחד ממנו דבר‪ ,‬בקנס אבדן כל‬ ‫הרכוש לגנזי המלך‪ .‬ויאמר לו האיש הנני אדני המלך אליך לעשות כמצותך‪ ,‬ולא אוחיל יותר מהיום‬ ‫הזה‪ ,‬כי שוב אשוב אליך עם מכתב כל פרטות קניני אשר קניתי לי‪ .‬ויהי לעת ערב שב אליו וכתב קטן‬ ‫בידו‪ ,‬ויאמר לו המלך היש בנייר הזה כל קניניך? ויאמר לו עיניך תחזינה כי אין לי עוד כל מאומה לכן‬ ‫אדני מנה מנה ואני קורא לך הרשום בכתב אמת‪ ,‬ויקרא לפניו ראשונה כה' מגנים עוד יב' עוד ל' עוד כ'‪,‬‬ ‫וכן עד שבא לכלל סך אלף מגנים או סביב‪ .‬וכשמוע יועציו כזאת צעקו עליו ויאמרו הזאת חשב זה‬ ‫האיש הבליעל המשקר ומפר ברית אדניו‪ ,‬ידענו נאמנה כי לו צאן ובקר ועבדה רבה‪ ,‬בתים שדות‬ ‫וכרמים רואי השמש שאין בם מדחה‪ ,‬והוא יכחש בם‪ .‬ויחריש האיש אליהם עד כלותם לדבר עליו צרה‪,‬‬ ‫ויאמר אדני המלך אם תשמעני ותקח אמרי‪ ,‬תדע כי אמת יהגה חכי ושקר בימינם‪ ,‬ולא כחדתי מאדני‬ ‫דבר‪ .‬וזה כי הכה' מגנים שקראתי באזניך היה שהשאתי יתומה אחת לבן גילה‪ ,‬שכבר בגרה‪ ,‬והיב' כי‬ ‫הלבשתי שני ערומים שלא היה להם כסות בקרה‪ ,‬והל' מגנים כי מצאתי מת שלא היו לו קוברים‪ ,‬בן‬ ‫טובים וגדול המעלה‪ ,‬וכבוד עשיתי לו במותו ובקבורתו כראוי לו‪ .‬והכ' פדיתי בם שכני מיד שוסהו‪ ,‬וכן‬ ‫עד סך האלף שמתי כדוגמת אלה המעשים שלא אספק שלא תקחם ממני ואוכל פרותיהם בעולם הזה‬ ‫והקרן קים לי בעולם הבא‪ ,‬זה חלקי מכל עמלי אשר לא יוכל עליו מעול וחומס גנב או עושק או שודדי‬ ‫לילה‪ ,‬וכל הקורות והגלגולים שאפשר שיבואם‪ ,‬ויתר הדברים הנמצאים בין ידי אינם שלי כי תקחם‬ ‫לכל עת חפץ וביחוד אם תאבה ליועציך או תשמע להם‪ .‬ויהי כחלות המלך חליו אשר מת בו והיה‬ ‫כפשע בינו ובין המות‪ ,‬צוה לאשר על ביתו שיקח לו אמתים ]צ"ל מאתים[ דוק וישאהו על נס ויכריז‬ ‫בכל רחוב זה יקח לו המלך הגדול מכל אוצרותיו‪ .‬אמר ערום יצאתי מבטן אמי וערום אשוב שמה‪.‬‬ ‫ואמר כי לא במותו יקח הכל ולא ירד אחריו כבודו"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .16‬מאמץ כח‪ 41 ,‬ע"א‬ ‫"העצל המשתוקק המניח ההשתדלות מתשוקתו לבחירת המנוחה עליה ]‪ [.. .‬ואלה להיות תשוקתם‬ ‫גדולה מחריצותם יתחכמו להמציא מיני מלאכת תרמית רבות התועלת‪ ,‬עם העדר הטורח בהשגתם כמו‬ ‫מלאכת הכימיה‪ ,‬ועשיית הבורית‪ ,‬ועבוד העורות‪ ,‬ועשיית הטלסמאות‪ .‬והניעם זה אל הכפירה בו‬ ‫ית']ברך[ ולהמציא אלהי נכר‪ .‬וממיני המחיה המושגים במצוע אלה המלאכות אשר לא יטרידו בעליהם‬ ‫בהשגתם‪ .‬אמר ]משלי‪ ,‬לא‪ ,‬כז[ ולחם עצלות לא תאכל"‪.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪269‬‬ ‫‪JEWISH WORK ON THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND THE FOUR VIRTUES‬‬ ‫‪ .17‬מאמץ כח‪ 13 ,‬ע"א – ע"ב‬ ‫"כמו שיעשו השטופים והזוללים מבחירת המאכלים להוסיף תאות המשגל והזרע ותאות המאכל לצבות‬ ‫בטן ולהרבות שפכת זנונים‪ .‬גם יעשו החקויים והציורים במלבושים ובטבעות ובנזמים למזכרת עון לא‬ ‫ישכח‪ .‬ופעם ישימו שם החושק או החשוקה בחידות במכתב חרות עליהם להוסיף בהרהור ולהתמיד‬ ‫בחשק‪ ,‬ופעם יהיו מאמרים כמו‪ :‬דודי לי ואני לו‪ .‬אין בלתו‪ .‬אחת היא‪ .‬חפצי בה‪ .‬אליה תשוקתי‪ .‬כל‬ ‫מעייני בך‪ .‬ידידות נפשי‪ .‬כל ישעי וכל חפץ‪ .‬ופעם יקחו כנור וירבו שיר עגבים‪ ,‬יסובבו עיר להגדיל‬ ‫השמחה למען יזכר הפשע תמיד‪ .‬ורז"ל אמרו ]בבלי‪ ,‬יומא‪ ,‬כ"ט ע"א[ הרהורי עברה קשים מעברה"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .18‬מאמץ כח‪ 92 ,‬ע"ב – ‪ 93‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"הפרק הרביעי במיני המדות שהם תחת מדת החסידות הראשיית‪.‬‬ ‫הם ראשונה החבה והאהבה והידידות והחשק והרצון‪ .‬והפכה‪ .‬האיבה והשנאה והמשטמה והתעוב‬ ‫והמאוס‪ .‬ויראה מדברי החכם‪ ,‬מאמר ח' ממדות‪ ,‬היות גדר האהבה והחבה בכלל הפעלות הנפשיות ותכונת‬ ‫מעלה וחפץ השגת הטובות לאהוב עם ההתגמלות בשווי או בהתיחס‪ .‬וזה הגדר כולל אהבת המתדמים‪,‬‬ ‫כמו הרעים או השותפים או האחים או המתחלפים במדרגה כמו האב לבן והאיש לאשה והאדון לעבד‪,‬‬ ‫וההפך והוא כולל גם כן שלשת המינים שמצא באהבה ובחבה‪ ,‬והם אשר מפני המעלה ואשר מפני הערב‬ ‫ומפני המועיל‪ ,‬לא שנתן לכל אחד משלשתם הבדלים מיוחדים‪ .‬וגדר ההתלהבות בהלצה שידעו כל אחד‬ ‫מהם תשוקתם‪ ,‬הגעת הטובות איש אל רעהו‪ .‬גם התנה שלא יעלימו איש מרעהו כל מאומה כאמרו‬ ‫שנאתני ולא אהבתני וגו' ]שופטים‪ ,‬יד‪ ,‬טז[‪ .‬חדת לבני עמי ולי לא הגדת וגו' ]שם[ איך תאמר אהבתיך‬ ‫ולבך אין אתי ]שופטים‪ ,‬טז‪ ,‬טו[‪ .‬ויראה היות לשון המכתב הקדוש מסכים לזה הגדר אמר כי אהבת נפשו‬ ‫אהבו‪ ,‬גם צוה ית' ואהבת לרעך כמוך כלומ']ר[ לחפוץ בו הגעת הטובות כמו שיחפוץ הגעתם לעצמו‪,‬‬ ‫ויחד החכם האהבה שתהיה מפני המעלה שהיא אשר תקרא אהבה בעצם‪ ,‬וזולתה במקרה‪ ,‬ורצה שתהיה‬ ‫בתכלית ההפלגה ולא נתן לה מרחב כי אמר שהאהוב אחד לבד והיא המיוחדת לטובים ולמעולים אשר‬ ‫לא תפסד ולא תשתנה‪ ,‬כמו אשר תהיה מפני הערב או המועיל‪ ,‬כי אשר תהיה מפני אלה הסבות השתים‬ ‫ישתתפו בה הרעים כי הם יאהבו קצתם את קצתם מפני התענוגים‪ ,‬או מפני התועלת‪ ,‬ועם היות שימצאו‬ ‫שלשת המינים האלה בבאור במכתב האלהי‪ ,‬הנה העיון הזה לפי דרכו הוא פילוסופי‪ ,‬השיגוהו ספקות‬ ‫יקשה באורם‪ ,‬ודרך התורות אחרת למה שבאה המצוה באהבת השם ואהבת הגר והתנהג במעשה החבה‬ ‫אפי']לו[ עם השונאים‪ .‬ודוד התפאר באהבת תורתו ית' ומצותיו ומעון ביתו‪ ,‬וכל שכן מה שנמצא במוסר‬ ‫האוונגיליקאל מצווי אהבת השונאים וכל אדם לבלי חק‪ ,‬ומבלתי שמירת ההתגמלות וההתחלק בשווי‪ ,‬כי‬ ‫השערת השווי ושמירתו להתחלף הדעות בו הוא ממה שיעתק בנקלה האהבה והחבה‪ ,‬ולכן היה מחק‬ ‫החסידות לחיב האהבה והחבה אפי']לו[ למי שאין לו חק עליו לרגל ההדמות אשר בעבורו יכנו האנושיים‬ ‫בשם אחים ורעים ועמיתים כמו שקדם ונרצה ברבוי האוהבים לעזר ולהועיל ולהנצל מילדי הימים וצוק‬ ‫העתים לא לאחד לבד ואף אם יהיה בתכלית ההפלגה כי טובים השנים וכל שכן הרבים מצורף הכרחיותם‬ ‫במחיה לרב צרכי האדם יחייבוהו להיות מדיני בטבע‪ ,‬איש את רעהו יעזורו בבקשת הצרפים ]צ"ל‬ ‫הצרכים[ והדברים הנאותים להם בחיים ובהנהגה המשובחת ולהשיג הטובות ולהנצל מהרעות מבלתי‬ ‫תקות השגת גמול תענוג או תועלת‪ ,‬אמר ]משלי‪ ,‬טו‪ ,‬יז[ טוב ארוחת ירק ואהבה שם משור אבוס ושנאה‬ ‫בו‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .19‬מאמץ כח‪ 14 ,‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"אמרם ז"ל גוף ונשמה יכולין לפטור עצמם מן הדין‪ .‬הגוף אומר‪ :‬לא ידעתי נפשי שמתני במרכבת‬ ‫החטאים במחשבה וסברא ובחירתה כי אליה המשפט‪ .‬והנשמה אומרת גופי השיאני והטני מדרך השכל‬ ‫להמשך אחריו להפיק מאוויו‪ ,‬כי הוא האוכל והשותה והלוקח התענוגים"‪.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ ‫‪R. BEN-SHALOM‬‬ ‫‪270‬‬ ‫‪ .20‬מאמץ כח‪ 14 ,‬ע"א – ‪ 15‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"אמרו המושלים כי יש להולך בצאתו מן העיר שני דרכים‪ :‬האחד כמו כר נרחב מסוקל מאבן‪ ,‬בו כל עץ‬ ‫פרי נחמד למראה וטוב למאכל‪ ,‬ופרחי הציצים מתנוצצים יתנו ריח והוד בכל ערבות ותענוג‪ ,‬ובסופו‬ ‫רוצחים וגנבים ושודדי לילה‪ ,‬יגנבו דים כל הבא לידם‪ ,‬גם ירצחו ויצודדו נפשות‪ .‬והדרך השני בלתי‬ ‫סלול‪ ,‬והוא משעול צר‪ ,‬בלתי מסוקל מאבן‪ ,‬לא יעלה בו כל עשב ולא יצמח בו כל פרי‪ ,‬והוא כמדבר‬ ‫שממה ציה וצמאון‪ .‬וכי ראה ראו אנשי העיר כי יבחר לו כל ההולך הדרך הסלולה ורבים חללים נפלו‬ ‫בה‪ ,‬בנו להם על אם שני הדרכים עופל אחד‪ ,‬ובחרו להם זקן אחד מקציהם ונתנוהו עליו‪ ,‬ויהי להם‬ ‫לצופה ושם עמד בחוץ‪ ,‬לעוברים להזהירם אי זה הדרך ילכו בה‪ .‬ויהי היום ויבאו שני אחים‪ ,‬אחד חכם‬ ‫ואחד פותה‪ ,‬ויקרא להם האיש הזקן הצופה ויאמר‪ :‬זה הדרך לכו בה‪ ,‬ולא תלכו בדרך ההיא עם היותה‬ ‫סלולה וערבה‪ ,‬כי בם ימותו כל ההולכים בה כי תמצאו רוצחים ושודדים אורבים לדם‪ .‬וכשמוע החכם‬ ‫דבריו הואיל הלך בדרך אשר צוהו הצופה‪ ,‬ויגער בו אחיו ויאמר לו‪ :‬למה נאמין לאיש הזה ועינינו רואות‬ ‫ערבות הדרך הזה ויפיו‪ ,‬ולמה נעזבנו ללכת בדרך לא יעברנו טמא נפש‪ ,‬כסיל ובער‪ ,‬ופריץ חיות בל‬ ‫יעברנו‪ ,‬למה יתענו האיש הזה לבחור בשני הדרכים האלה ברע‪ ,‬ולעזוב הטוב המוחש‪ ,‬להוליכנו בדרך‬ ‫לא עבר בה איש‪ ,‬וימאן החכם לשמוע לו ויפרדו איש מעל אחיו‪ ,‬וילך הפותה לדרכו אשר בחר לו‪.‬‬ ‫והחכם הלך בדרך הצופה‪ .‬ויהי אחרי לכתו כמטחוי קשת‪ ,‬וימלך החכם באהבתו ובחמלתו לאחיו ויאמר‬ ‫בלבו‪ :‬למה אעזוב אחי הולך יחידי‪ ,‬אולי יפגשוהו הרוצחים האלה ויוכלו לו‪ ,‬כי יחיד הוא‪ ,‬ויהרגוהו כי‬ ‫אין עוזר לו‪ ,‬וחטאתי לאחי כל הימים‪ .‬טוב ממנו שאלוה עמו ואולי נמלט שנינו מידם‪ .‬ויקרא בקול גדול‬ ‫לאחיו שימתין לו עד בואו אליו‪ ,‬וילכו שניהם יחדיו צמדים בדרך אשר הזהירם הצופה‪ ,‬ויהי כי באו עד‬ ‫קצו וימצאום הרוצחים ויאסרום‪ ,‬ויעמידום כפותים תחת אחד השיחים‪ ,‬לשומם לטבח‪ .‬ויאמר החכם‬ ‫לאחיו‪ :‬מה לי ולך אחי כי הביאותני עד הלום‪ ,‬ולא שמעת לקול הצופה אשר העיד בנו ונפתית לתענוגות‬ ‫הדרך הזה וערבותו‪ ,‬ליפול ביד הרוצחים האלה‪ .‬ואתה אחי בשלך העון כי כבר הייתי מאמין לצופה‪ .‬ולו‬ ‫קרך העונש לך לבדך‪ ,‬לא יהיה זה מן הפלא‪ ,‬אך למה לי זה הפגע‪ ,‬ולמה הגיעני כזאת באהבתי ובחמלתי‬ ‫לך‪ ,‬להיותך אחי ועצם מעצמי‪ ,‬כי לולי זה הייתי שומע וחדל‪ .‬וישיבהו אחיו‪ :‬גם בך עון אשר חטא כי‬ ‫שמעת לעצתי ועזבת עצת הזקן‪ ,‬ואתה ידעת כי פותה אני מנעורי ונפתה בתענוגות בני האדם‪ .‬גם לך ראוי‬ ‫העונש כי נתפתית ללכת אחרי עם סכלותי ורוע בחירתי‪ ,‬וישחטו שניהם יחדו‪ ,‬החכם והפותה‪ ,‬איש‬ ‫בחטאו מת‪ .‬קנצי למלין‪ ,‬אין לשמוע לעצת החמר לסכלותו ולרוע מזגו‪ ,‬כי הוא יועץ בליעל ולפי דרכו‪,‬‬ ‫ותשליכהו עצתו ולא יצלח לכל"‪.‬‬ ‫‪ .21‬מאמץ כח‪ 83 ,‬ע"א‪.‬‬ ‫"כי עם היות ההפסד והמות נמצא באישי האדם‪ ,‬הנה יתכן בם ההשארות הנצחי בג' אופנים מוחשים‪,‬‬ ‫זולתי הנפשיי המושכל שעין לא ראתהו זולתי אלהים‪ :‬א‪ .‬בהשאירם ברכה אחריהם זרע ברוכי יי' ]‪[.. .‬‬ ‫ב‪ .‬בהשארות שמו וזכרו לנצח מצד הגדלת המעשים הנרצים בעיני אלהים ואדם כמו נצחון הפרשי']ם[‬ ‫המה הגבורים אשר מעולם אנשי השם‪ .‬הנמצא ספוריהם בספרי הקאנוניקאש מרומא וצרפת למען לא‬ ‫ישכח‪ .‬ומה שיעשו השרים הבונים חרבות ומבצרים מקדשים ומגדלים לעשות להם שם תפארת נצחי הוד‬ ‫וכבוד יקראו בשמותם עלי אדמות‪ .‬ג‪ .‬ספרי החכמים וחבוריהם להאיר מחשכי הספקות אשר אפשר‬ ‫שיעמדו בשכל האנושיים הבאים אחריהם‪ ,‬והמציא חבורים וסדורים חדשים לא שערום זולתם‪ ,‬יתענגו‬ ‫בם המעיינים הנבונים‪ ,‬תעלוזנה כליותיהם בדברם מישרים ויראו חדשות לא עלו על לבם‪ ,‬יברכו עושיהם‬ ‫וממציאם‪ ,‬יזכירוהו כי נשגב שמו לנצח נצחים"‪.‬‬ ‫‪The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.‬‬ ‫‪DISTRIBUTION‬‬ Mediaeval Studies Volume 75 2013 Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies DISTRIBUTION