Page 77 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

the Rabbinates turned with a request for help to - the Roman Catholic
Church. This help was indeed granted to them but it cost them the
great part of their followers. The appeal to the Inquisitorial Court
for the arbitration of internal disputes of the Jewish community had
as its first consequence the burning of the writings of Maimonides
by the Dominicans in Montpellier and Paris who were ever zealous
in this matter.
After this first attack there occurred soon a second, and
again the impetus to it came from the side of the Jews. A French
Jew who had converted to Christianity, Nicolaus Donin, appeared
publicly at the Lateran Council against the doctrines of the Talmud
that disparaged Christianity. Thereupon Gregory IX passed, as the
first pope, a bull (1239) in which he ordered the confiscation of all
copies of the Talmud. The Jews moved heaven and earth to thwart
this regulation but they did not succeed. Pope Innocent IV confirmed
it and ordered the burning of the Talmud in the bull "Impia
Judaeorum Perfidia". This bull was indeed carried out many times
in Spain, Portugal, Rome and other countries. In Paris, 24 wagon
loads were apparently thrown into the fire.
Later, the prosecutions of the Talmud were set about once
again at the instigation of many converted Jews. Salomo Romano
especially, the descendant of a famous Jewish grammarian, played
in the court of Pope Julius III the role of plaintiff and pointed out
the passages of the Talmud blaspheming Christ and Christianity. In
August 1553 there was issued a strict papal order to confiscate all
Jewish books. These, as many as could be obtained, were thereupon
burnt in September 1553 in Rome, others later in Ferrara, Mantua,
etc.
But later the pope issued a permission to leave the Jews
their books, only the Talmud had to be firmly prosecuted as before.
That Rome was in this case right in principle and only
practically some times crossed the line is proved by later times.
Since the emergence ofprinting, the order ofburning retreated more
to the background and there was censorship instead, whereby the
Jews were forced to erase all passages referring to Christ. With a
heavy heart the rabbis omitted their "pearls and gems" but helped

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