Heresy

Sul profilo biografico di Cecco d'Ascoli, al secolo Francesco Stabili, gravano secoli di leggenda che si è frammista alla storia. Le scarse notizie sulla sua formazione, la rapida e fortunata carriera universitaria, i processi inquisitoriali e la tragica fine sul rogo a Firenze  hanno alimentato una pluralità di notizie a suo carico che devono fare i conti con le fonti storiche. Il presente lavoro tenta innanzi tutto di chiarire quali siano queste fonti e, quindi, di tracciare un profilo biografico attendibile.
Nel secondo capitolo, invece, viene analizzata quella che per diverse ragioni può essere ritenuta come l'opera più rappresentativa dell'autore: il Commento alla Sfera del Sacrobosco. La lettura del manuale di astronomia più diffuso del medioevo, diviene nel corso stabiliano occasione per intrecciare astrologia, negromanzia e magia.
L'ultima parte dell'elaborato, infine, è più ricca di domande che di risposte. Dopo aver analizzato in chiave diacronica e sincronica il contesto dello studium bolognese, vengono espresse alcune suggestioni in merito alle problematiche poetico-letterarie e alcuni indirizzi di ricerca futuri sulle questioni stabiliane.

Article published in Bamidbar 5.2 (2015), pp. 21-55.
http://www.bamidbar-journal.org/

I explain why W. Benjamin and G. Agamben think that late modernity, especially in the form of late capitalism, fails to neutralize the authority structures of religion and therefore calls for profanation of such structures rather than secularization. This leads me to consider how Frankist Jews profaned the structures of orthodox Judaism and Christianity in a manner that allows us to imagine forms of human existence that do not merely invert the authority structures of religion but alter them. I discuss four such structures: national, gender, territorial and economic. This view of Frankism as a liberating profanation gives it more systemic affinity to members of the Frankfurt School than is usually supposed. I discuss each of these profanations in relation to the thought of Ernst Bloch and contrast them with Scholem's views, which vacillate between secularization and inwardness. In this way I hope to establish a commonality of inspiration and a continuity of purpose between Frankists like Ariyeh von Honigsberg and Frankfurtists like Bloch and Benjamin. Such commonality and continuity legitimates our regard of such thinkers as profoundly faithful exponents of critical Jewish modernity.

This paper deals with the representation of David as a "feminized Messiah" appearing in the image of the Shekhinah in Kabbalistic literature, and with the connections between femininity and heresy in Jewish messianic movements. In the course of this analysis, I focus on the development of the concept of David as "fourth leg of the Divine Chariot,” from the origins of Kabbalah (the Bahir, R. Asher Ben David, R. Jacob Bar-Sheshet) to Castille and beyond, in the Zohar and the Theosophical-Theurgical Kabbalah in 13th–14th Century (in texts written on the Iberian Peninsula), up to the portrayal of David as the Shekhinah in Lurianic Kabbalah and Sabbateanism. I claim that in the cases of David and Shabbatai Zevi, heresy indeed accompanies femininity. If the present order and its law are typically gendered as masculine, the threatening, disruptive forces that attempt to bring forth redemption are identified as feminine.

In this article, I analyze the religiosity of Bompietro of Bologna as reported in the register of the inquisition of Bologna, 1291-1310. I attempt to show that Bompietro’s religiosity was above all practical; its doctrinal content seems to be scarce, and it was not focused on support of any church (Roman or Cathar). Bompietro’s case reveals a non-confessional type of religiosity, one still underrepresented in the image of medieval Christianity. This case also encourages wider reflection on the relations between beliefs, practices and membership. Far from having direct causal links, these relations can sometimes prove quite intricate.

Keywords: Bompietro of Bologna; inquisition; practical religiosity; non-confessional religiosity; concept of religion; concept of membership; heresy and orthodoxy; Catharism.

This poster is part of a group of posters created by historians on the theme of "Les Cathares : une idée reçue" for a travelling exhibition for the general public sponsored by the national organisation "Fête de la Science".

This poster discusses in broad terms the origins of the inquisition into heresy and complex position of early inquisitors. Readers are challenged to some source criticism: looking for evidence of Cathars via a folio from Bibliothèque de Toulouse MS 609, the registry of the Great Inquisition at Toulouse.

This paper aims to illustrate the post-medieval reception of the Cathar heresy and the birth and development of a real «neo-Cathar mithology» from the end of XIX century to present day. After a brief historiographical introduction on Cathars, it will consider the contemporary neo-Cathar revival, which can be divided into two different phases. During the first one (end of the XIX century-first half of the XX), the Albigensian heresy was mostly considered as an esoteric and syncretic belief or as the founding myth of Occitanian identity; in the second one, instead, it was regarded as a sort of ancient and authentic gnostic-Christian message in opposition to Roman Catholicism. Both phases converged, during the second half of the XX century, in a succesful commercial phenomenon, which has led to the production of novels, movies and songs dedicated to the cathar epic.
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"Questo studio intende illustrare la ricezione post-medievale dell’eresia catara e la nascita e lo sviluppo, dalla fine del XIX secolo fino ai nostri giorni, di una vera e propria «mitologia neocatara». Dopo una breve introduzione storiografica sui catari, esso prenderà in esame il revival neocataro contemporano, che può essere diviso in due diverse-fasi. Durante la prima (fine del XIX secolo-prima metà del XX), l’eresia albigese fu vista principalmente come una credenza esoterica e sincretica o come il mito fondativo dell’identità occitana; nella seconda fu invece considerata come una sorta di antico-e autentico messaggio gnostico-cristiano contrapposto al cattolicesimo romano. Entrambe le fasi sono confluite, durante la seconda metà del XX secolo, in un fenomeno commerciale di successo, che ha portato alla produzione di romanzi, film e brani-musicali dedicati all’epopea catara.

This paper focuses on how thirteenth- and fourteenth-century inquisitors conceived of the beliefs, practices, and workings of non-conformist Christian groups. The inquisitors’ view of what constituted a heretical sect and how it worked was remarkably modern in at least three respects. First, it was strikingly historical and geographical: the inquisitors were interested in the historical and geographical dimensions of heretical sects, including the changes that particular heretical rituals, doctrines, and communities underwent over time. Second, the inquisitors were deeply interested in distinguishing different groups and subgroups, and produced elaborate classifications and comparisons. Finally, the inquisitors, driven by their need for hard evidence meeting procedural requirements, somewhat shifted the notion of heresy from inner beliefs to observable rituals and habits. At the same time, however, inquisitional trial records abundantly demonstrate that they were well aware of how precarious it is to draw a straightforward causal link between inner beliefs, words, and outer actions. Based on examples from three early inquisitorial descriptions of heresy, including the Practica inquisitionis heretice pravitatis by Bernard Gui, this paper examines how medieval inquisitors conceived of heretical sects, their changes over time, and the relationship between religious beliefs and actions, and how they headed towards a peculiar, and in many ways familiar, religious theory of religion.

The aim of the article is to show how the Hussites referred the apostolic pattern to themselves. One of the fields where such an attitude may be observed is the liturgy of the Hussite radicals described by Vavřinec z  Březove – which at least intended to replicate the Last Supper and the general conviction about the necessity of communion under both kinds to salvation.
Another field is the repeated and fierce discussion over the role of Judas Iscariot and the meaning of being the true apostle. The will to be the new apostles among Christians seduced by evil was so strong among the reformers, that the new generations took over the idea and confronted it with their forerunners.

This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted on both sides of the Channel. It identifies 34 Quaker missionaries in 17th- and early 18C France, sheds new light on the French reception of Quakerism and suggests possible connections with non-violent, charismatic movements in Languedoc.

An entry in the online German-language MennLex encyclopedia project (originally from 2012; published in 2020). The article considers how Swiss Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites can be analyzed in terms of the historiographical model of confessionalization, if that concept is understood in a heuristically flexible way. The English version is a pre-publication text. Please consult and cite the German version (link included).

Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle Ages were divided in many ways. But one thing they shared in common was the fear that God was offended by wrong belief. Medieval Heresies: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the first comparative survey of heresy and its response throughout the medieval world. Spanning England to Persia, it examines heresy, error, and religious dissent - and efforts to end them through correction, persuasion, or punishment - among Latin Christians, Greek Christians, Jews, and Muslims. With a lively narrative that begins in the late fourth century and ends in the early sixteenth century, Medieval Heresies is an unprecedented history of how the three great monotheistic religions of the Middle Ages resembled, differed from, and even interrelated with each other in defining heresy and orthodoxy.

Most studies of Donatism tend to focus on its seemingly binary struggle with the other major expression of the Christian faith in North Africa, the Caecilianist church. And for good reason: the majority of our surviving primary sources on the movement are direct products of the polemical war that raged between the two communions. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to simply characterize the struggle as binary in nature. Like their Caecilianist counterparts, Donatist writers are in fact concerned with a whole range of sub-orthodox beliefs that characterized their own age, including Montanism, the rhetorical construct that passed as “Arianism” in North Africa, and above all Mani.

In this presentation, I will focus on the ways in which heretics outside the Caecilianist communion are addressed within Donatist writings. In doing so, I believe we can discover two important points about the dissident communion. First, Donatist concerns about heresy illustrate the fact that the movement was more well-rounded than we often give it credit for: far from merely fighting for its life against Caecilianist opponents, it was actively concerned with other threats to the life of the church. In particular, anti-Manichaean hysteria appears to have been as widespread among Donatist Christians as their Caecilianist counterparts. Second, understanding the perception of heresy within the Donatist communion may help us navigate the tricky question of how Donatists understood the phenomenon of Caecilianism itself. Several texts illustrate that one concern that Donatists had about Caecilianist baptismal theology was its troubling tendency to accept Manichaean baptisms as valid. Whether these anxieties are real or polemically-convenient, they illustrate the relevance of the wider concept of heresy to the Donatist-Caecilianist debate.

Review of Bart Ehrman's interview on his book about 'How Jesus became God, Exaltations of a Jewish preacher'. This review criticises the use of Protestant assumptions (e.g. 'itinerant preacher') about the role of Jesus and his position in first century Temple-centered society. His position was that of Teacher in Temple. The cleansing of the Temple and the silence and impotence of corrupt high priesthood are proof of this. His authority was based on recognition of his high education and especially his genealogical purity, Aaronic and Davidic.

"Heresy" is developed here as an analytical term for the criminalization of speech questioning the basic tenets of a belief system, such as internal criticisms of state socialism or denial of the applicability of the term genocide to some mass crimes in a European Union that purports to make central the protection of human rights. European legislation to criminalize "genocide denial" is critiqued through a close analysis of international legal decisions dealing with whether "genocide" took place in the Bosnian war of 1992—95. Although granting both the facts as these courts found them and the serious criminality of the actions involved, Robert M. Hayden argues that calling them "genocide" broadens the definition of that term to the extent of losing the possibility of uniform application. Criminalizing "genocide denial" is thus not only contrary to principles of free speech and intellectual inquiry but manifests the same problem that Amnesty International identified in its reports in the 1980s on the vagueness of the "verbal crimes" provisions of the criminal laws of the formerly socialist countries.

Postscript 2024: considering the censorship, and worse, of scholars who comment on Gaza after October 7 2023, this article seems prescient.

The aim of this article is not to introduce Donatism as such, or to rehearse what is known about it. Rather, the focus is on a single aspect of Donatist thought — the shaping of the idea of the separation of church and state. On the basis of Donatist martyrologies, imperial documents, Optatus of Milevis’s seven books usually known as Contra Parmenianum Donatistam, and some of Augustine’s relevant treatises and epistles, it will be shown how, in time, the Donatists’ initial collaboration with the empire turned into an eventual confrontation with the empire, and how the doctrine of the separation of church and state began to act as justification for their collective change of mind.

Given the emphasis on orthodoxy in early Christianity, it appears to go un-noticed that the real heresy of the patristic age was rooted in the linguistic practice of making apologies. Constraint on the use of argument, as understood from the Pauline corpus, framed crucial restrictions in forming Christian communities. The twentieth-century linguistic turn in philosophy prof-fers a warning to Christian philosophical societies about the need to ponder the practice of argumentation in their communities. I revisit key figures, i. e., Paul van Buren, J. L. Austin, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who leave Christian philosophers with additional tools to dissolve the dilemma of a Christian's call to be a faithful witness and the Christian constraint on linguistic practices of argument.

The purpose of this research is to publish a manuscript of the treatise Sefer Habri’a (The Book of Creation), written in 1670 by Rabbi Avraham Binyamin Nathan ben Elisha Chaim Halevi Askhenazy, also known as Nathan Ghazzati or Rabbi Nathan of Gaza. It has been copied into several manuscripts, which ended up scattered around the world, until they were ultimately collected by professor Chaim Wirszubski Z.L. of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s. Wirszubski set out on a project of conducting a scientific edition of the treatise, and even published a small part of it.  However, misfortune has prevented him from finishing his great work, and he was called upon to teach in the Great Yeshiva in heavens. Now, the reader is presented with a full edition, accompanied by a comprehensive and methodical research. The research is separated from the original text, to allow the reader to focus on the text itself, if they so wish. Those who would seek to also delve into the analysis, can easily do so.
It is not everyday that a person is awarded the great privilege of returning a lost book to the collective Jewish library. Even more so when it is a book written by one of the greatest rabbis in recent generations, least of all a halakhic figure of the magnitude of Rabbi Nathan. We are faced with an unparalleled text in Rabbinic messianic and Hebrew literature. It is the central text of the Sabbatean movement after Sabbatai Zevi’s conversion to Islam. Sefer Habri’a was written by the progenitor of the movement, Rabbi Nathan of Gaza. Rabbi Nathan was famously considered a prophet by the spiritual leaders of the Jewish world in his time, and was one of those who declared Sabbatai Zevi to be a messiah. He was the one who explained the profound meaning of Zevi’s conversion, and the one who tried to prevent the masses from converting along with him.
If we wish to be certain that we can indeed declare “thou art our brother” to Nathan, we must look at this renewed text from every possible perspective. The text’s uniqueness, it’s complexity, length and meaning introduce many challenges, both on the technical-philological level and on that of semantic analysis. We should also pay heed to how socially problematic the Sabbatean movement is, following the heated debates that arose several generations after Zevi’s conversion. On that subject, we can view Sefer Habri’a as a treatise which ascribes profound meaning to Zevi’s ‘foreign acts’, through the Ha’ari’s hyper-nomic system. That is, the Lurianic Kabbalah, which unequivocally accepts the Jewish Halakha as sacred, is the treatise’s main method of discourse. It seems that the survival and continuity of Jewish tradition after the crisis was Rabbi Nathan’s main motivation in writing this immense work. That is, the desire to give a profound kabbalic meaning to the commandments of halakha, in the face of a shifting historical reality is at the heart of the text.
Sabbateanism is a grave subject in Jewish history. Therefore, whenever a new Sabbatean document is published, we must ask ourselves how its publication will affect the existing knowledge we have. When people read new material that contradicts what they perceive to be true, they often develop a ‘resistance front’, assuming that every new claim must be proved out of the existing body of knowledge, as if the unknown can be explored from the confines of the known. The problem here is evident - new information cannot be added in this way, and true learning cannot be achieved. All that can happen is that we pour old knowledge into a slightly different mould, at best. That said, there are times when a newly published document is so important that it demands of us to re-examine all of our previous held knowledge. More often than not, those who are tasked with preserving knowledge are not enthusiastic by the appearance of a new research which undermines the well known system to which they adhere. Therefore, if we wish the new knowledge to be properly accepted by people in that position, upon publishing such a document we must present in detail what we retain, and what we reconsider. It is possible that Sefer Habri’a would lead us into rethinking the Sabbatean movement in its entirety. It is, after all, a fundamental text written by the movement’s progenitor, immediately after the conversion. We will soon see that Sefer Habri’a would lead any observant reader to a clear understanding that it is a Kabbalah book that follows directly the writings of the Ha’ari. It is a direct continuation, and some would even say the highlight, of the Lurianic corpus. In this manner we can also see that Torat Israel, the Jewish halakha and the well-being of the nation at a time of crisis were undoubtedly on the mind of the author, Rabbi Nathan of Gaza, and that he was a loyal grand sage of Israel.

The Nicene–Constantinopolitan profession that the Son of God is begotten, not made, presents the tension that the Son is caused by God but not created. This claim was a point of controversy in the semi-Arian and Eunomian/Anomean disputes of the fourth century. The latter argued that unoriginateness is central to divinity. Hence, the Son, being originate, cannot be of the same nature as the Father. Some philosophers of religion today echo this same conclusion. In this article, I show, contrary to both ancient and modern critics of the begotten-not-made distinction, that the Eastern fathers offer clear differences between begetting and creating, which clarify why the distinction is cogent and necessary within their metaphysics.

NOTE: The attached PDF is of the author MS, not the journal proofs. However, the author has formatted the MS to ensure that its pagination coincides with the supplied proofs of the published version. The published essay appears in Religious Studies in 2018.

While discussing the nature of witches and witchcraft trials, one may find that an extraordinary amount of those accused of engaging in witchcraft are executed, typically following a confession. In particular, those cases tried, in Scotland, by local authorities, yielded a ninety-percent execution. If an individual were to be accused of witchcraft, according to these statistics, the accused would have a ten-percent chance of being acquitted and permitted to live. A witchcraft accusation is essentially a death sentence in places like Scotland during this time. Given these excessively high numbers of convictions and executions, one can only begin to question the reasons behind the convictions themselves. Interestingly enough, in many of these cases, and potentially more often than is able to be understood from the sources remaining today, the accused is tortured upon their arrest, often illegally. The use of torture, resulting in numerous false confessions, played a crucial, primary role in the conviction of such a high number of those accused of having engaged in witchcraft. This applies even more so to those individuals who may have been tortured on more than one occasion in an attempt to extract a confession.

Joan of Arc wore men’s clothing almost continuously for the last two years of her life. Joan’s lengthy testimony at her trial for heresy clarifies how cross-dressing shaped her self-presentation and why she was unwilling to give it up despite months of pressure to do so. Joan’s supporters tended to justify her cross-dressing by citing its abnegation of feminine inferiority and its practicality for military campaigning. Neither of these conventional justifications is sustained in Joan’s verbal testimony. She never hides or renounces her womanhood, yet she refuses to give up cross-dressing when no longer on campaign. Men’s clothing emerges in Joan’s testimony as one of several aspects of masculinity in her uniquely gendered practice. Of all her contemporaries, Christine de Pisan in her "Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc" comes closest to articulating Joan’s own sense of how masculinity and femininity interrelate in her identity.

È grazie alla modernità se possiamo oggi riscoprire la natura storica di Gesù e del cristianesimo originario. Il cristianesimo non nasce con Gesù e, quando prende forma definita, appare come una religione avversa all’ebraismo. Gesù, però, era ebreo e non voleva fondare un’altra religione.
Il libro mostra dapprima l’azione critica esercitata dalle scienze storiche moderne sulla visione del modo antiebraica creata dal cristianesimo antico. Si riscopre ad esempio la natura ebraica della Bibbia che il cristianesimo antico aveva negato cristianizzandola.
I capitoli centrali mettono in luce l’impatto della scienza moderna sul sistema teologico cristiano. Sono le concezioni politiche moderne che denunciano la deformazione politica del cristianesimo. Le dichiarazioni dei diritti dell’uomo (emerse grazie all’illuminismo) hanno avuto un impatto trasformatore positivo non solo sulle diverse forme di cristianesimo, ma anche sull’ebraismo e sull’Islam. La sterminata ricerca storica moderna su Gesù, però, non è frutto di un atteggiamento anti-cristiano, ma delle molteplici e diversificate correnti cristiane che assumono volta a volta i diversi fattori culturali della modernità.
In sostanza, ebraicità di Gesù, nascita del cristianesimo antiebraico e impatto critico della modernità sono tre aspetti inscindibili che stanno al cuore dell’interrogazione contemporanea.

"Megaleh Temirin (Revealer of Secrets), ed. Jonatan Meir, Three volumes, Mosad Bialik, Jerusalem

Megaleh Temirin (Revealer of Secrets), first published in Vienna in 1819, is one of the sharpest and wittiest pieces of Jewish literature written in the first half of the nineteenth century, and is perhaps the most important piece of Hebrew prose composed before the stories of Mendele Mocher Seforim. A sly and complex story deriding Hasidism and Hasidim, it is told through the correspondence between the beadles of Hasidic courts and contemporary rabbis, and it presents a dark picture of  avaricious frauds and swindlers whose main concern was control over territory and the souls of believers, a goal achieved by beguiling the authorities and attacking all opponents. Perl lends his book a ‘Hasidic’ feel both in its physical design and in its language, presenting a Maskilic version of In Praise of the Ba’al Shem Tov that lays Hasidism bare so that no reader will ever be able to look at that, or any other Hasidic book, in the same way again. In addition to the book’s satiric sting, which would have been enough to bring its readers a dual pleasure, Perl’s hints at contemporary people and places, hidden within anagrams and numerological tricks. With the unraveling of these clues, which also include the use of actual Hasidic sources, the book is a valuable, contemporary view of historical reality. A meticulous reading of the book may therefore open a window on the hidden worlds of Hasidism and the Haskalah at the start of the nineteenth century.


The first volume (Imagined Hasidism) serves as an introduction to the complex satirical writings of Josef Perl of Tarnopol (1773-1839). At the center of the book stands an analysis of the satires, Megaleh Temirin (1819) and Bochen Tzadik (1838), including a systematic treatment of the ‘characters’ in the central works and a discussion of the dozens of manuscripts to be found in the Perl Archive in Jerusalem. Perl’s writings are analyzed here in the fuller context of Hebrew and Yiddish literature in general and Maskilic and Hasidic literature in particular, as well as other polemical writings and governmental records critical of Hasidism. The study thus presents a complex and nuanced picture of the relationship between literature and history, between the anti-Hasidic reports and the more complicated historical reality, and lays the groundwork for further research into the genre of nineteenth-century Maskilic satire.

The second and third volumes (Megaleh Temirin) present for the first time an annotated edition of Megaleh Temirin. It is based on the first edition and the scattered manuscripts and it includes a comparison to its Yiddish translation. The book is accompanied by appendices on its origins and contents, including fundamental treatments of several passages: an explication of the encoded names, the Hasidic sources used by the author, and the variants found in the manuscripts and in the only edition of the book in Yiddish.

The editor of the book, Professor Jonatan Meir, teaches in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University. He has published several articles on the Haskalah of Eastern Europe, Hasidism, and a number of varied topics in twentieth-century Kabbalah.


Contents

Volume 1  - Critical Edition

Concerning this edition
Key personalities
Sefer Megale Temirin – Critical Edition


Volume 2 - Appendixes:
1. Glossary, Abbreviations, Acronyms
2. Explanation of the Speaking Names
3. Perl’s Hasidic Sources
4. Manuscripts of Sefer Megale Temirin
5. Yiddish Introduction to Sefer Megale Temirin
Bibliographic Abbreviations

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Reviews:
(1) Dan Meron, 2013, ‘Megaleh Temirin’, Kivunim Hadashim 29, 55 pages (Hebrew)
(2) David Assaf, 2014, ‘Hasidim will not Read it but Tear it’, Haaretz, Tarbut ve-Sifrut, p .6 (Hebrew) http://onegshabbat.blogspot.co.il/2014/04/blog-post_18.html
(3) Eliezer Brodt, 2014, 'New book Announcement- Megale Temirin', The Seforim Blog http://seforim.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/new-book-announcement-megale-temirin.html
(4) Matan Hermoni, 2014,  הסבתא המופקרת של הספרות העבריתHaaretz, Sfarim (Hebrew) http://www.haaretz.co.il/.premium-1.2382365
(5) Shinichi Yamamoto, 2015, 山本　伸一, "ヨナタン・メイール編著『想像のハシディズム』", ユダヤ・イスラエル研究　第28号  http://www.waseda.jp/assoc-jsjs/jistudies.html
(6) David Biale and David Assaf,, 2015, 'Revealer Revealed', Jewish Review of Books, pp. 17-21  http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1454/revealer-revealed/
(7) Hillel Halkin, 2015, "Sex, Magic, Bigotry, Corruption- and the First Hebrew Novel', Mosaic Magazine,  http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/05/sex-magic-bigotry-corruption-and-the-first-hebrew-novel/
(8) Tomer Persico, 2015, "Interview", Lula'at haEl Blog, http://tomerpersico.com/2015/08/10/meir_perl/