Averroistic Trends in Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

A number of historians have asserted that the spread of Jewish Averroism in the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries was a major cause of widespread Jewish apostasy in Spain. It was felt that the propagation of a philosophy which maintained that reason is superior to any religion contributed to a weakening of the Jewish resolve to withstand intense conversionary pressure. If all faiths were of equal value, or indeed, of no value, what benefit would accrue to a Jew if he suffered for his Judaism? If he could expect no reward in the next world, as Averroism seemed to preach, would it not be better to enjoy what this world has to offer? Thus, Spanish Jews, who were deeply imbued with philosophical ideas, became Christians in large numbers.' This is not the place to enter into the discussion as to whether the Averroists correctly understood Averroes or the historians correctly understood the Averroists. Suffice it to say that most late medieval Jewish philosophers basically agreed with Averroes's distinction between demonstrative and dialectical truths and believed that the latter, i.e. the doctrines of religion, could not be proven by the former, i.e. philosophical reasoning.2 This may have led a number of individuals to think that since reason could not demonstrate the truth of any religion, Judaism could not be said to have any