Dr. Marie T Champagne

In mid-twelfth-century Rome, one clerical scholar, Nicolaus Maniacutius, honed his philological skills as he endeavoured to return the text of the Psalter to the original. Maniacutius met the challenge of editing Scripture in an unusual manner as a Christian Hebraist, consulting with Jewish scholars to compare the Vulgate Book of Psalms with the Jews’ Hebrew text. In doing so, he followed the example set by his scholarly predecessor, St Jerome, centuries earlier, as well as his contemporary, Hugh of St Victor. While scholars have acknowledged that Maniacutius consulted with Jews and learned Hebrew, the identity of the one or more Jewish scholar(s) remains obscure. The Sephardic scholar Abraham ibn Ezra lived in Rome c.1140-1143, and while there wrote a commentary on the Psalms. Nicolaus also revised the Psalter and wrote of a ‘learned Spanish Jew’. This article explores the phenomenon of Christian Hebraism in mid-twelfth-century Rome through the life and work of Maniacutius, and presents evidence that supports Cornelia Linde’s suggestion that Abraham ibn Ezra was the ‘learned Spanish Jew’ with whom Maniacutius worked. In addition, textual evidence supports Maniacutius’s work within an informal, cross-confessional discourse community of Jewish and Christian scholars.

The distinctive contribution of Roman Jewry13 to the ceremonial of Easter Monday derived from the obligation of its members to render specific and very public rituals to the pope, including the displaying of the Hebrew Bible and their offering of both acclamations and customary pepper tributes, all of which Cencius,14 chamberlain to Celestine III, recorded in his Liber censuum or Book of Taxes of c. 1192:15

The Jews present the Law to the Lord Pope on the road on the day of his coronation and acclaim him; and they carry three and a half pounds of pepper and two and a half pounds of cinnamon to the Chamber.16