The Declaración by Maestre Juan el Viejo

Eleazar Gutwirth

doi:10.5209/elem.68641

Abstract

The Declaración, by the converso Juan el Viejo, is an unpublished fifteenth century work in the genre of the Judeo-Christian polemic. It is not an indistinct miscellany but a highly structured work on a well defined text: Psalm 72, which it interprets verse by verse. The Declaración cannot be earlier than the same author’s Memorial. Views of Juan as “typical”, as a “type”, recall some of the problematics of converso typology since the nineteenth century. Most of the ideas from Christian sources in Juan seem to be conventional if not formulaic. Most readers of Juan avoid dealing with - the major consistent trait of his works- the Aramaic and Hebrew components; what Juan calls the “sabidores”. While there is the problem of unacknowledged intermediate sources there is also a proto philological bent in an author who avoids drawing purely on biblical translations and who confronts different versions. His Messianic/Christological bent is part of a tradition of reading that particular text but it coheres with his contemporaries’ predilections. Behind his arguments and formulations it is possible to detect unsuspected echoes of what he calls a life spent studying the “Old law”.

Highlights

Once shunned as an age of decline, the late medieval period moves to the center of the attention of historians facing the challenge of increased texts and documents
In the case of medieval Hispano-Jewish history, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries offer an embarrassment of riches in terms of evidence, texts and documents concerning Judeo-Christian disputations and polemics
In Hebrew polemical/exegetical literature of the period we find code switching to romance in the works of Içac Eli; Salamon Astruc Adret of Barcelona and Shlomo ben Melekh: they all refer to Isaiah 52:15 “yazeh” and they all find that the best equivalent is “fara parlar”

Summary

Conclusion

Juan el Viejo does not, at first sight, belong in the universe of discourse of formally literary works such as Auto de los reyes magos; Danza de la muerte; Juan de Dueñas poem (A una judia) or the Libro del alborayque. Juan el Viejo’s “proto-philological” direction may be discerned in a number of ways He is well aware of the version of Jerome but he is aware of divergent readings –not always theologically relevant– in the Masoretic texts and he mentions them. The importance of learning for the Christian is asserted by implication His view that study will miraculously protect him from death or his proud assertion of having spent a life time in learning the “Old Law” or his designation of the Talmudic authorities as sabidores (despite the double edged quality of the designation) testify to an intense belief in the value of reading and intellectual pursuits which is known in other ages as Study as Worship

Introduction3

The Author

The converso

Metamorphoses