Rupertus Tuitiensis: Anulus seu dialogus de sacramentis fidei. Edited by A. Magoga

Abstract

Towards the end of his life, around 1125, Rupert, abbot of Deutz (Cologne, where there was a large Jewish presence), was much concerned with the Quaestio Iudaica. Dom Alessio Magoga has over the past twenty years illuminated this phase of Rupert’s output: in 2004 he produced an edition of two books of Rupert’s De Gloria et honore filii hominis, super Matthaeum, where the Jewish question is often addressed; now he has re-edited the Anulus, a dialogue in which a Christian and a Jew discuss the issues that separate them. There had been a long history of Christian polemic against the Jews; the counterparts of the treatises of the patristic period (Tertullian, Augustine) were works of the twelfth century taking the form of dialogues (Peter Damian, Peter Alfonsi, Gilbert Crispin, Abelard). They were symptomatic of the gulf between Christians and Jews and, however well meant, did nothing to halt the persecutions. How the Anulus fits into this picture is something not explored by Magoga, a major gap in his long introduction. But in Rupert’s case at least the dialogue form, perhaps adopted to keep the attention of the young monks for whom he wrote (prol. 54), had a beneficial effect. It ensured that the Jewish case did not go by default. Christian is on the back foot, for it is Jew who asks the questions: often awkward ones, even though it may be felt that they sometimes go unanswered. Christian chivies Jew in colloquial terms for his lack of understanding (see p. 47, n. 110, where knowledge of the Querolus is hardly proved. Add i. 59 quid stas? quid taces et titubas?; i. 98–9 quid iterum stas? quid hesitas?; i. 233 quid nunc taciturnus astas?, to be compared with e.g. Plautus, Epid. 583 quid stas stupida? quid taces?); but Jew is allowed to protest at the way he is being treated: ‘I haven’t got time to listen to this sort of thing any longer: I’m busy’ (i. 250–1); ‘You make me tired, and more or less make me not know what I do know’ (ii. 537–8). Christian may occasionally fall back on familiar aspersions such as the killing of Christ (i. 607–10 [‘out of cupidity and avarice’], ii. 508–9, iii. 602), but on the whole the two slug it out on technicalities, trading quotations from the Old Testament. Rarely do we have an exchange as crisp as this, near the end (iii. 692–3): Jew (confronted with Gen. 9:2–3): ‘. . . Why don’t you also eat dog? Why don’t you also swallow frog or toad?’ (ranam sive rubetam; Pliny the Elder often mentions the rana rubeta, which has in Rupert mistakenly evolved into alternative names for one creature). Christian says he regards Jew as his brother (i. 805), and he aims at his conversion: ‘Take this ring [anulus, symbolizing faith] with me’ (i. 817). But, all in all, the conversation is not very friendly: Rupert calls it a monomachia, a single combat (prol. 48).