Pope Innocent IV

Neste trabalho apresentamos uma tradução bilíngue, latim-português, de um importante documento medieval, a bula Ad extirpanda (1252). Usualmente qualificada como um dos
“textos fundadores da Inquisição”, essa bula é um documento valioso do cenário político de meados do século XIII. A tradução, inédita em língua portuguesa, é acompanhada de breve texto introdutório.

Contrary to a historiographical tradition that arose with a Life composed soon after his death in 1263 and lived on to include the present author, Aleksandr Nevskii was not in his lifetime the staunch defender of Russian Orthodoxy against the Catholic Church’s crusades in the Baltic region, as he was depicted in the Life. By contrast, in the late 1240s Aleksandr joined the alliance Pope Innocent IV forged in an attempt to counter the Mongol onslaught on Europe.

The paper addresses the question of how the Latin translation of the Talmud, known as the Extractiones de Talmud (1245), is related to the changing perception of the Jews and in particular to the reassessment of their legal status during the thirteenth century. It draws particular attention to Pope Gregory IX’s description of the Talmud as another law – an alia lex, as he called it – which challenged the traditional representation of the Jews as witnesses of the Christian truth, depicting them instead as heretics. This new perception of the Jews had far-reaching consequences for their legal status, for the popes used it to subject them to direct papal jurisdiction. To conclude, the question of whether the discovery of the Jewish »Oral Law« can be considered the cause of this new representation of the Jews in the strict sense is addressed. It is argued that it may, conversely, have been the intended representation of the Jews as heretics, who could thus be subsumed under papal jurisdiction, which was instrumental in bringing to light and decrying this body of rabbinic wisdom.