Bodo Eleazar

Bodo Eleasar (also Bodo Eleazar ; bl. 838-840) was a Jewish apologist of Christian origin. The most important sources for the biography of Bodo Eleazar are the annals of the Abbey of Saint Bertin ( Annales Bertiniani ), written by Prudentius of Troyes , as well as an exchange of letters between Bodo Eleasar and the Mozarab scholar Pablo Álvaro of Córdoba .

conversion

During his Christian time Bodo (or Puoto) lived as a noble palace deacon at the court of Louis the Pious . According to his origins an Alemanni, he is said to have been raised Christian from childhood and prepared for a life as a courtier. In addition, he received instruction in various sciences.

In the year 838 Bodo asked permission for a pilgrimage from Aachen to Rome. However, he probably only followed this route as far as southern Gaul. From there he turned to Spain and joined the Jewish community in Zaragoza . Allegedly he sold his companions on the pilgrimage as slaves to the Muslims, except for his nephew, whom he is said to have coerced into conversion. Whether he converted on the way and then moved to Saragossa (according to Prudentius) or took this step in the Jewish community of Saragossa (according to Amulo von Lyons in his polemical work Liber contra Judaeos ) is uncertain. The conversion included his circumcision , adoption of the new name Eleazar, and marriage to a Jewish woman. The former cleric also changed his looks by wearing his hair longer, growing a beard, and dressing in military clothing. "In order to perfect his transformation, he also tied a sword belt, which is to be seen as a testimony to the defensive strength of the Jews of his time."

He continued to be taught the Jewish faith by scholars in the Zaragoza community. Amulo von Lyons writes that Bodo Eleazar broke completely with his Christian past, denied the divine nature of Christ, desecrated baptism, mocked Christ and his church and sat daily in the "synagogue of Satan".

Correspondence with Pablo Álvaro

In 840 Eleazar had a literary controversy with Pablo Álvaro of Córdoba, a Christian author who claimed to be of Jewish origin. Each of the two tried unsuccessfully to return the other to the original belief. The tone was initially friendly: Álvaro addressed the first letter to “my dear” Eleazar, who in turn called Álvaro a “good man”. In the further course, both sides resorted to insults: Eleazar declared that he had turned away from a religion that was "reprehensible, pathetic, lying, cursed, horrible and despicable and abhorrent"; Álvaro called Eleazar an "enemy of God, transgressor of divine law," he said he violated canon law and stole sacred things.

The correspondence is only preserved in a copy from the 11th century, although Eleazar's letters were greatly shortened and also erased in the 13th century. The loss of text is partially compensated by the fact that Álvaro quotes his opponent extensively. The manuscript is now kept in the Cathedral Archives of Cordoba. As far as the state of preservation of the letters shows, Eleazar was fluent in Latin and quoted Beda Venerabilis and Isidore of Seville . In his mocking remarks about Jesus and Mary, Eleazar showed himself to be influenced by the Toledot Yeshu . Alvaro's strategy was to attack Eleazar's lower status as a convert. He has only superficial knowledge of his new religion: “Why has this argument never been made against us before? … Perhaps you, more Gauls and Latins than Hebrews, have understood what was previously hidden from the heads of the synagogue, and a Latin will find more in Hebrew scriptures than a Hebrew. ”In the style of Paul of Tarsus , Álvaro described himself as a real Hebrew , to whom the promises of the prophets were assigned, while Bodo Eleazar only appropriated these texts. One subject of controversy was the anthropomorphisms of the Hebrew Bible : Bodo Eleazar claimed, “God wrote the law with his finger [cf. Ex 31.18 EU ]. Paul Alvarez replied that God was not human after all and that the 'finger of God' had to be taken as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. "Álvaro pointed out the distressed situation of the Jews in the present, which Eleazar weakened with the memory of the Babylonian exile : God had already turned the fate of his people around once, and he could do that again - here Eleazar quoted Ez 36–37 in detail. The splendid appearance of the churches is a purely external and material thing, just as the temples of the Greeks and Romans fell to rubble, so will the church buildings fare too.

Next life

According to Prudentius, Eleazar campaigned among the Muslim rulers of Spain to force their Christian subjects to convert to either Judaism or Islam. Spanish Christians then asked the West Franconian ruler Charles the Bald for help and demanded Eleazar's return to the Frankish Empire. With this, Prudentius increases the negative characterization of the convert Bodo Eleazar, so that he seems to become more and more diabolical over time: "In the eyes of Christian authors, a former Christian mutated into a monster who craved the blood of innocent Christians."

If this episode is historical, it would be dated to 847. There is no news of Bodo Eleazar's later life.

literature

Allen Cabaniss: Bodo-Eleazar: A Famous Jewish Convert . In: The Jewish Quarterly Review 43/4, April 1953, pp. 313-328.
Norman Golb : Jewish Proselytism - A Phenomenon in the Religious History of Early Medieval Europe ( PDF )
Frank Riess: From Aachen to Al-Andalus: the journey of Deacon Bodo (823-76) . In: Early Medieval Europe 13/2, May 2005, pp. 131–157.
Sabrina Späth: Conversions on the Medieval Iberian Peninsula. A comparative consideration of three converts in the mirror of the sources . FAU University Press, Erlangen 2016. ISBN 978-3-96147011-2 . ( PDF )
Evina Steinová: The Correspondence of Pablo Alvaro with Bodo Eleazar: A Rare Sample of Judeo-Christian Dispute from the 9th Century . In: Canonicity and Authority 2010 ( PDF )

Individual evidence

↑ Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here p. 201.
↑ Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here pp. 203 f.
↑ Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 94 f. Bernhard Blumenkranz : The Roman Church and the Jews . In: Jeremy Cohen (ed.): Essential papers on Judaism and Christianity in conflict: from late antiquity to the reformation , New York University Press, New York 1991, pp. 193–230, here p. 215.
↑ Migne, Patrologia Latina , Volume 121, Columns 483, 491-492, 512-513.
↑ Evina Steinová: The Correspondence of Pablo Alvaro with Bodo Eleazar: A Rare Sample of Judeo-Christian disputes from the 9th Century , p. 8
↑ Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 95.
↑ Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 96.
↑ Johann Maier : Studies on the Jewish Bible and its history , Walter de Gruyter, bBerlin / New York 2004, p. 245.
^ Bernhard Blumenkranz : The Roman Church and the Jews . In: Jeremy Cohen (ed.): Essential papers on Judaism and Christianity in conflict: from late antiquity to the reformation , New York University Press, New York 1991, pp. 193-230, here pp. 219 f., 223 f.
↑ Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (Ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here p. 205.

personal data
SURNAME	Bodo Eleazar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bodo Eleazar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	apologist
DATE OF BIRTH	9th century
DATE OF DEATH	9th century

[1] Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here p. 201.

[2] Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here pp. 203 f.

[3] Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 94 f. Bernhard Blumenkranz : The Roman Church and the Jews . In: Jeremy Cohen (ed.): Essential papers on Judaism and Christianity in conflict: from late antiquity to the reformation , New York University Press, New York 1991, pp. 193–230, here p. 215.

[4] Migne, Patrologia Latina , Volume 121, Columns 483, 491-492, 512-513.

[5] Evina Steinová: The Correspondence of Pablo Alvaro with Bodo Eleazar: A Rare Sample of Judeo-Christian disputes from the 9th Century , p. 8

[6] Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 95.

[7] Ryan Szpiech: Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic , University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania 2013, p. 96.

[8] Johann Maier : Studies on the Jewish Bible and its history , Walter de Gruyter, bBerlin / New York 2004, p. 245.

[9] Bernhard Blumenkranz : The Roman Church and the Jews . In: Jeremy Cohen (ed.): Essential papers on Judaism and Christianity in conflict: from late antiquity to the reformation , New York University Press, New York 1991, pp. 193-230, here pp. 219 f., 223 f.

[10] Anna Aurast: Related enemies. Christian conceptions of Jews and their religion in selected narrative and legal testimonies from the Middle Ages . In: Anna Aurast, Hans-Werner Goetz (Ed.): The Perception of Other Religions in the Early Middle Ages: Terminological Problems and Methodical Approaches , LIT Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 169–208, here p. 205.