Nikolaus Donin

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Nikolaus Donin , also Nikolaus von Rupella (born in the 13th century, from La Rochelle ), was a Jewish apostate who caused the Paris Talmud trial of 1240.

Life

Little is known about the origin of Donin. His nickname Rupella suggests that he came from La Rochelle. He was a student of Rabbi Jechiel ben Josef of Paris and was expelled from the Jewish community by him in 1225 because of heretical behavior. The reason for the ban was either that he dealt with Karaitic ideas, or more likely because he was taken with the ideas of Maimonides . According to the statements of his teacher , he has since thought evil about us and tried to harm Judaism. After the escalation of the Maimonides dispute in 1232, when books by Maimonides were burned at the instigation of French Tosafists , Donin finally turned away from Judaism. In order to be able to take better action against his Jewish opponents and their " blasphemy and stupidity" ( blasphemiae in Deum and stultiae ), he was baptized in 1235 or 1236 and then entered a mendicant order .

As for the ritual murder accusations of Fulda of the year 1235 Friedrich II. In 1236 in Augsburg convened a meeting Donin participated as one of the invited converts also participated. However, he did not get through with his slander that the ritual murder was founded in the Talmud.

After Donin had no success with the emperor, he went to his opponent Pope Gregory IX in the same year . to Rome. After three years he had won the Pope over to his cause. In June 1239, Gregory IX. the bishops of France, England and Spain were instructed to confiscate all accessible copies of the Talmud during the service on March 3, 1240, a Sabbath . In the subsequent Talmud trial in Paris, the 35-point indictment against Donin's Talmud formed the basis. The main contact persons on the Jewish side were his former teacher Jechiel ben Josef and Rabbi Juda ben David von Melun. One of the main charges was that the Talmud placed oral tradition above the Torah and that it was full of illicit anthropomorphisms , profanity and blasphemies against Jesus, Mary and the Church. One serious indictment contained Item 10, in which Donin alleged that the Jewish scriptures said that the best of Christians should be killed ( optimum Christianorum occide ). The Jewish defenders initially managed to repel the attacks. Two years after the trial, however, the great Talmud burned in Paris in 1242 . For two consecutive days, 24 truckloads of Hebrew books previously collected from all over France were publicly burned.

Donin's further career is unclear. He is said to have continued anti-Jewish activities for a long period. Whether he became a really good Christian is doubted. In 1287 his name was mentioned for the last time because he had attacked his order in a pamphlet .

literature

  • Alexander Kisch : Pope Gregory of the ninth article of indictment against the Talmud and its defense by Rabbi Jachiel ben Josef and Rabbi Juda ben David before Louis the Saint in Paris . Leipzig 1874. online
  • Isidore Loeb: La controverse sur le Talmud sous saint Louis . Paris 1881. online
  • Judah M. Rosenthal: The Talmud on Trial: The Disputation at Paris in the Year 1240 . In: The Jewish Quarterly Review , 47/1 (1956), pp. 58-76; 47/1 (1956), pp. 145-169.
  • Bernhard Blumenkranz : Jewish and Christian Converts in the Jewish-Christian Religious Discussion of the Middle Ages . In: Miscellanea Medievalia 4 (1966), pp. 264-282.
  • Jeremy Cohen: Friars and the Jews: Evolution of Mediaeval Anti-Judaism . Ithaca 1982, ISBN 978-0801414060 .
  • Kurt Schubert : Apostasy from an identity crisis - Nikolaus Donin . In: Kairos. Journal for Jewish Studies and Religious Studies , 30/31 (1988/89), pp. 1–10.
  • Israel Jacob Yuval : Two peoples in your body. Mutual Perception of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages . Göttingen 2007. ISBN 978-3-525-56993-1
  • Judah M. Rosenthal:  DONIN, NICHOLAS. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 5, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865933-6 , p. 750.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schubert: Apostasie (1988/89), p. 4.
  2. ↑ Kisch (1874), p. 24f.
  3. ↑ Presumably he entered the Franciscan order , cf. Cohen: Friars (1982), p. 60.
  4. ↑ Cf. Yuwal (2007), chapter Fulda 1235, Paris 1240: Christian reactions? P. 273ff.
  5. ↑ Cf. Cohen Friars (1982), chapter The Attak on Rabbinic Literature , p. 51ff; Rosenthal (1956) The Talmud on Trial .
  6. ↑ The individual charges are listed in Kisch (1874) p. 24ff. See Loeb: La controverse (1881).
  7. ↑ Rosenthal (EJ2)
personal data
SURNAME Donin, Nicholas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nicholas of Rupella
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish apostate and instigator of the Paris Talmud trial
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
PLACE OF BIRTH La Rochelle
DATE OF DEATH 13th Century