Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (review)

Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity. By Jeremy Cohen. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1999. Pp. x, 451. $60.00 clothbound; $24.95 paperback.)

Jeremy Cohen, one of the most prolific historians on the Jews in the Middle Ages and the author of the earlier The Friars and the Jews (1982) and "Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It" (1989), has produced in his latest work an excellent overview of the changing ideas on the position of the Jews in medieval Christianity in the writings of some of the greatest and most influential thinkers of the period. It is the study, in the author's own words, of ". . . the medieval history of . . . a hermeneutically and doctrinally crafted Jew, from Augustine of Hippo to Thomas Aquinas" (p. 2).

The book, whose title is taken from a description of the Jews by Bernard of Clairvaux, is divided into four parts. The first examines the Augustinian foundations of the understanding of the position of the Jew in Western society, an establishing of the medieval doctrine of toleration toward these people who bear witness to the roots of Christianity. Part two explores the continuation in the early Middle Ages of the Augustinian tradition in the writings of Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, and Agobard of Lyons, especially the central importance for them of the doctrine of Jewish witness. The two final parts examine the gradual loss of the Augustinian perspective on the place of the Jews in the Christian order as the category of the "other" is increasingly broadened to include Muslims and heretics. Part three, entitled "Reconceptualizing Jewish Disbelief in the Twelfth Century," studies the writings of such important intellectual figures as Anselm, Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, and Abelard, among numerous others. The final section of the book focuses on the friars in the thirteenth century, particularly the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

The book succeeds in many ways. It is an excellent overview of the changing position of the Jew in western Christendom to the fourteenth century and the role of some of the greatest medieval thinkers in reshaping that position. The examination of the role of heresy in this change is particularly important and places Cohen in the front ranks of those who view the central importance of heresy, at least in so far as the Jews are concerned, in contributing to the restructuring of the West during the central Middle Ages.

Yet it is precisely this shift which cannot be adequately explored by considering only the writings of the great thinkers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The period between 950 and 1100 is pivotal for the rise of heresy and the growing Western reaction to the threat of Islam. This period, however, receives scant attention, primarily because of the lack of major intellectual figures in these years, with, of course, the major exception of Anselm of Bec, and creates a significant gap between the first and second halves of the book. Also to be regretted is the failure to give major attention to the growing incarnational spirituality in the central Middle Ages as contributing to the worsening position of the Jews.

Nevertheless, on the whole, what Cohen has done with this fine book and its excellent up-to-date bibliography is to give us a fundamental survey of its subject and the starting place for all further research on the changing position of the Jew in the thought of the medieval West. He has written a work which contributes greatly to our understanding of the medieval growth of Western anti-Judaism.

Daniel F. Callahan
University of Delaware

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