Dialogue against the Jews

Fourth Titulus

FOURTH TITULUS OSES: NOT UNDESERVEDLY, I give thanks1 to the one who illuminates hearts and drives away the darkness of such great blindness from our mind, even if only very late. Not unjustly I also repay you with the greatest thanks, you who have lifted the error of infidelity from me with the light of the clearest and most unconquerable arguments. Now, if it please you, following the order already established, explicate the next part of our proposed tasks. For you said that we observe hardly any of the law’s precepts, and that that is not itself pleasing to God. Eagerly I would like to hear why, or for what purpose , you said this. petrus: Since what I said—that you keep hardly any of the commandments of the law—is so clearly evident, it does not require proof from either authority or reason, considering that it can be proved with those very sacrifices that you never celebrate. For you do not present an offering of a lamb as a sacrificial victim in the morning and evening,2 as was done in the past; nor do you celebrate the burnt offerings at the time of the new moon,3 or the burnt offerings of the Sabbath rituals,4 or those of bread, wine, and oil, which similarly you have neglected. Neither do you offer the libations, nor that which was prepared daily on the table, nor that bread of presentation which your forefathers were accustomed to offer on the seventh day.5 They also kindled from evening time to morning the lamps that were prepared,6 and at the same times they had the incense placed in censers burned in the Temple.7 They also guarded the ordinations and anointings of the priests, and the various changes of their vest139 1. Reading gratias (A) for the nonsensical ratias (B). 2. Cf. Ex 29.38–39. 3. Cf. Nm 28.11–15. 4. Cf. Nm 28.9–10. 5. Cf. Ex 25.30. 6. Cf. Ex 27.21. 7. Cf. Ex 30.7–8. 140 ALFONSI ments and the different varieties of the foods they consumed;8 and they guarded the performances [vicissitudines] of the ministers taking their turns according to the precepts of the law during specific weeks. They consecrated the Levites as well,9 chosen according to the law, and performed the psalms with musical instruments, just as Moses had instituted. They presented one portion of the firstlings of a cow, a sheep, and a goat as an offering , and another portion they reserved for the priests to consume .10 Moreover, they redeemed the firstborn of man and of unclean animals for a price,11 and they gave the first fruits of the trees12 to the priests as food. They did not assign the use of any of the fruits remaining on the trees for the first three years. In the fourth year, all of their fruits were sanctified as praise to the Lord. Moreover, they offered the first fruits to the priests, and to the Levites they gave one of the two tenths,13 and they carried another to Jerusalem to be eaten in the holy place. In addition, the Levites rendered a tenth of the tenth that they received to the same priests. The seventh year was a Sabbath for the land, and the fiftieth year was a jubilee year.14 In addition, there was subject to the judgment of the priests the law of every kind of leprosy that would strike them: of the leprosy of garments and dwellings, of a scar and blisters breaking out, of a shining spot and various types of changed colors, so that it might be known when a thing is clean or unclean.15 Also, the law concerning him who suffered an issue of seed,16 as well as the law regarding a woman who is separated during her monthly times,17 and the sacrifices of their purification, was established according to the decision of the priests. If any man entered the tent of a dead man18 or had touched the cadaver of a man that was slain,19 or his bone or his grave, both he himself and all the vessels in his tent were unclean, until they were cleansed—sprinkled with the 8. Cf. Ex 29.1–7. 9. Cf. Nm 8.6–13. 10. Cf. Nm 18.17–18. 11. Cf. Nm 18.15. 12. Cf. Nm 18.8...