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MedievalJewish, Christian and Muslim Culture

Encountersin Confluence and Dialogue

Medieval Encounters �� (�0�6) �65–�9�

Jean of Avignon: Conversing in Two Worlds

Naama Cohen-HanegbiHistory Department, Tel Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel

[email protected]

Abstract

The intra-religious dialogue of medieval converts from Judaism to Christianity is evident in the works of the fourteenth-century Sevillian physician Jean of Avignon (known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shmuel of Roquemaure). Jean, a translator of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicine into Hebrew and the author of Sevillana medicina, was recurrently engaged in translating, transmitting, and debating religious notions and terms to his readers of both faiths. The medical arena in which this religious encounter took place, a common ground in many ways, enabled conveying and contemplating religious knowledge and practices. Sentiments of discord between faiths and societies alongside attempts to resolve such conflicts emerging in both of these works; the texts seem to evoke Jean’s complex inner vicissitudes between the two worlds. This essay discusses the personal religious tension in Jean’s works, granting significant attention to the special value of the medical context in serving as a terrain upon which the reli-gious dialogue is worked through.

Keywords

Jean of Avignon ‒ Juan de Aviñon ‒ Moshe ben Shmuel of Roquemaure ‒ Bernard of Gordon ‒ Lilium medicine ‒ Sevillana medicina ‒ Hebrew-to-Latin translation ‒ medieval medicine

Introduction

In 1360, Jean of Avignon (generally known by his Spanish name Juan de Aviñon, ca. 1320‒ca. 1384) produced a translation into Hebrew of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicine. Jean was a convert to Christianity, whose Hebrew name was Moshe ben Shmuel of Roquemaure. At the time, he practiced as a physician

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medieval encounters 22 (2016) 165–192

in the city of Seville, perhaps already in the service of the city’s archbishop. The decision to translate the famous medical work corresponds with a grow-ing interest among Jews in Latin medical works, which has already received scholarly attention.1 However, Jean’s previous conversion renders his endeavor somewhat unusual. Quite likely, Jean began translating the work while still a Jew but distributed it after his conversion to Christianity. Despite his baptism, Jean was still interested in reaching a Jewish readership. But his peculiar situ-ation offers more than the random anecdote. Examination of Jean’s works, written over a period of 30 years, presents Jean’s ongoing inner dialogue con-cerning faith and religion. Jean’s written work captures two issues that have received much scholarly attention in recent research: first, the nature of con-version and the identity of converts; and second, the encounter between reli-gion and medicine. Though some previous studies have discussed the histories of converted physicians in pre-modern medicine, inadequate research atten-tion has focused on the influence of changing faith and life circumstances on the medicine produced by converts.2 This research lacuna is in part the result

1 Luís García-Ballester, Lola Ferre, and Eduard Feliú, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Medicine,” Osiris, 2nd ser. 6 (1990): 85–117. For a more precise account of the number of translations of medical works from Latin into Hebrew in the period, see Gad Freudenthal, “Arabic and Latin Cultures as Resources for the Hebrew Translation Movement: Comparative Considerations, Both Quantitative and Qualitative,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 74‒105.

2 Marcelino V. Amasuno focused primarily on anti-Jewish remarks made by converted phy-sicians (including Jean of Avignon), treating them as peripheral to the medical content of the works. Jon Arrizabalaga primarily studied the biographies of converso physicians between the late fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also noted their marked appre-ciation for learned Arabic medicine and particular interest in medical ethics. These intrigu-ing suppositions call for a more thorough study of particular works. Marcelino V. Amasuno, “The Converso Physician in the Anti-Jewish Controversy in Fourteenth‒Fifteenth-Century Castile,” in Medicine and Medical Ethics in Medieval and Early Modern Spain, ed. Samuel S. Kottek and Luís García-Ballester (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1996), 92‒118; Jon Arrizabalaga, “Social Networks, Promotion Strategies and Religious Minorities in 16th-century Castile: The Case of the Converso Medical Practitioner Francisco López de Villalobos,” in The Price of Life. Welfare Systems, Social Nets and Economic Growth, ed. Laurinda Abreu and Patrice Bourdelais (Lisbon: Ediçóes Colibri, 2008), 265‒284; Jon Arrizabalaga, “The World of Iberian Converso Practitioners: From Lluís Alcanyís to Isaac Cardoso,” in Más allá de la leyenda Negra: España y la Revolución Científica / Beyond the Black Legend: Spain and the Scientific Revolution, ed. Vívtor Navarro and William Eamon (Valencia: Instituto de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación López Piñero, 2007), 307‒322. Michal Altbauer-Runik conducted a very thorough study of medical content and personal biographies among early modern converted physicians. Her findings show that physicians’ geographical and religious personal

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of the early stage of research into the topic in general, but also stems from the preliminary and prevalent assumption that medieval medicine was largely unaffected by the religious beliefs of its authors. The latter hypothesis has some validity, as learned medicine was construed as a neutral knowledge that is indispensable to all, and its knowledge does not necessarily display particu-lar religious convictions (perhaps with the exclusion of dietary advice). Recent scholarship, however, has uncovered the intrinsic religious culture evident in medieval Latin medicine, demanding a reconsideration of this assumption. In view of this reassessment, in-depth analysis of particular figures and their work is required for appreciating how their embedded religiosity influenced the period’s Hebrew medicine and the activity of Jewish and converted physicians.

Jean of Avignon’s medical writings serve as a rich case study for this investi-gation. His writings indicate that he closely related the two trajectories of reli-gious affiliation and medical practice. Apparently, for Jean, medicine provided the terrain upon which religious encounters and identity formulation took place. Plausibly, it was through his medical vocation that he was first drawn to the Christian world of learning and knowledge, and it was through medicine that he maintained an ongoing conversation with Jewish readers and thought. Jean’s writings clearly express his multifaceted and hybrid identity: both in the way he addresses Jewish and Christian readers and in the religiously multi-lay-ered manner in which he handled and discussed religious and medical issues. Jean’s work, with its prominent religious concerns, thus offers fertile ground for considering the relationship between medicine and religion in the four-teenth century, within the context of Judaism and Christianity.

Jean of Avignon is considered to have composed three works: (1) A Hebrew poem he wrote prior to his conversion, which will not be discussed here.3 (2) The translation of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicine, which Jean entitled Peraḥ ha-Refuʾah. Jean prefaced this translation with a page and a half of poetic description of a dream he experienced, which he claimed to be the inspiration

context was instrument in the medical advice they offered on the malady of lovesickness. See Michal Altbauer-Runik, “Prescribing Love: Italian Jewish Physicians Writing on Lovesickness in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” Working paper (European Forum at the Hebrew University, 2008–2009); Michal Altbauer-Runik, “Early Modern Jewish Physicians Writing on Lovesickness,” Korot 20 (2009‒2010): 99‒116.

3 Several scholars have edited and discussed this poem. See, A. Neubauer: “Schemariah de Négrepont et Jean d’Avignon,” Revue des études juives 10 (1885): 86–92; and the more recent study by Susan L. Einbinder “Moses de Roquemaure: Poetry, Polemic and Conversion,” in Giving a Diamond: Essays in Honor of Joseph Yahalom on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Wout van Bekkum and Naoya Katsumata (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 279–292.

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for his translation of the book.4 I discuss this introductory text separately here, as it is an original text by Jean and was possibly written at a later date.5 (3) An original medical work, Sevillana medicina (ca. 1384).6 Assumedly, Jean wrote this work in Latin, but it was only preserved in a printed Castilian edition pre-pared by Nicolás Monardes (ca. 1508‒1588) in 1541.7

At first glance, the two medical works to be discussed here share little in common: the first is a translation, the second an original composition; they dif-fer in languages, as well as in their intended readers. Moreover, the two books belong to two different medical genres: Bernard’s Lilium is a compendium of practical medicine; Jean’s Sevillana is an academic version of a regimen sanita-tis. And yet, reading them both through the prism of the relationship of medi-cine and religion and bearing in mind Jean’s biography, the continual dialogue between the two faiths and the struggles to accommodate them or, in some cases, to choose between them, stands out as a central and ongoing concern. Ultimately, both treatises disclose the unique role of medicine in Jean’s life as the terrain for resolving his religious beliefs and identity.

4 Uri Melammed and I edited and translated this preface into English in the appendix to my “Transmitting Medicine across Religions: Jean of Avignon’s Hebrew Translation of Lilium medicine,” in Latin into Hebrew: Texts and Studies, ed. Gad Freudenthal and Resianne Fontaine, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 1:121‒159. I will refer to this edition and translation here as “Appendix.”

5 It is often the case that prefaces are written after the actual work has been composed and, in the case of Jean’s writing, chronology is of the essence to establish his religious affiliation. As discussed more elaborately in Cohen-Hanegbi, “Transmitting Medicine,” 141‒143, evidence exists for the theory that Jean began translating the Lilium while he was still a Jew. This chro-nology would suggest a marked evolution between the translation and the preface.

6 See the introduction by José Mondéjar in Juan de Aviñón, Sevillana medicina, ed. José Mondéjar (Madrid: Arco/Libros, 2000). For a detailed discussion regarding the exact dating of the work, see Mondéjar, 26‒29. Another transcription of the text was produced by Eric W. Naylor, The Text and Concordance of the Sevillana medicina Burgos, 1545 (Madison: The Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1987).

7 Nicolás Monardes was a successful Sevillian physician who wrote a number of medical trea-tises and is considered to have been instrumental in introducing American herbs and mate-rial medica into European use. See Antonio Barrera-Osorio, Experiencing Nature: The Spanish American Empire and the Early Scientific Revolution (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006), 122. Some scholars, seemingly mistakenly, attribute to Jean of Avignon another trea-tise on phlebotomy, translated from Latin into Castilian in the late fifteenth century by Juan Lorenzo Carnicer. See, George Sarton, “Roquemaure, Moses of,” in Introduction to the History of Science (Huntington, NY: Robert E. Krieger, 1975), 3:1378‒1379.



A Nightly Vision8

The personal attachment Jean had to the project of translating Lilium medicine is intimated at the beginning of the text. The translation is forwarded with a poetic preface, a poem and an outline of the chapters of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium in his translation. The preface consists of a dream told in rhyming prose, plaid with a collation of biblical quotations in the form of a maqāma. The first line presents the translator as a convert: “Master Jean of Avignon, who as a Jew was named Moses son of R. Samuel de Roquemaure of Avignon.”9 A number of converts are known to have translated medical and scientific works from Latin into Hebrew in the later Middle Ages, mostly from the fif-teenth century onwards.10 The most prolific of them, Doeg Ha-Edomi, com-posed introductory prefaces explaining his decision to address a Jewish audience as an expression of his concern for the Jewish community and of repentance for his conversion.11 Jean’s preface offers no explanation for his engagement with a Hebrew text, raising the possibility that he began translat-ing it before converting.12 Yet his dispersal of the work and, thus, his interest in reaching Jewish readers despite his departure from the community, sug-gests that he did not shy away from associating with his former religion. These associations may have been strictly financial; as Joseph Shatzmiller has shown, producing translations was a very profitable undertaking in the period.13 Indeed, the poem conveys Jean’s anguish over his earnings, and the book lifts his spirits presumably for the monetary prospects it offers.14 The translation’s financial success is unclear, however: the absence of a dedication or mention

8 For thematic reasons, I chose to begin my analysis with the preface, despite the high likeli-hood that it was written after the translation (or part of it) was composed.

9 “Appendix.”10 D. Iancu-Agou, “La pratique du latin chez les médecins juifs et néophytes de Provence

médiévale,” in Latin into Hebrew, 1:85‒102; Joseph Shatzmiller, “Jacob ben Elie, traducteur, multilinge à Venise à la fin du XIIIe siècle,” Gli Ebrei e le scienze: The Jews and the Sciences, Micrologus 9 (Florence: SISMEL, 2001), 195‒202.

11 Gad Freudenthal, “The Father of the Latin-into-Hebrew Translations: ‘Doeg the Edomite,’ the Twelfth-Century Repentant Convert,” in Latin into Hebrew, 1:105‒120.

12 I address this question more elaborately in “Transmitting Medicine,” 140‒141.13 Joseph Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society (Berkeley, CA: University of

California Press, 1994), 45‒48.14 As Paola Tartakoff recently discussed, many converted Jews did not fare well financially,

as they were disassociated from both Jewish and Christian societies. Paola Tartakoff, Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon 1250‒1391 (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 81‒95. It is unclear whether

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of a specific patron suggests that Jean was working on his own behest in pro-ducing the translation, and the paucity of copies hints that not many actually circulated. Jean may have decided to disseminate the work merely because of his adept language skills, or rather as an expression of some sense of affiliation with the Jewish community. Ultimately, non-financial concerns do appear to underlie both the preface and the translated text; in particular, ruminations on faith and religion serve as a leitmotif throughout.

The preface opens with Jean asleep, envisioning a series of unsettling images that lead him to tear his garments and cry out to the Lord against His injustices. He complains that the whole community is punished for the sins of one man and that he, himself, was condemned for sins made while being confused and misguided. A Seraph then comforts him, acknowledging that Jean is an honest man who has gone astray and urging him to trust the Lord, follow his lore and dedicate himself to learning. Jean then awakes and delivers a poem (imitat-ing Abraham Ibn Ezra’s poem about his economic misfortunes), expressing his failure in securing a living.15 Jean concludes his poem, and a major transfor-mation occurs in the astrological map. Stars light his mind’s eyes and he sees Bernard’s book “as a lily among the forgotten myrtles.” The preface then closes with Jean’s announcement that despite the book’s errors, he took upon himself to translate it from Latin into Hebrew (“from the language of the Christians to the language of the Hebrews”) because he regarded its practical information useful.

The opening paragraph, which recounts the dream experience, echoes a medieval genre of dream narratives that were told as expositions to life-chang-ing events. Dreaming was commonly thought to be a state susceptible to divine intervention, and its prophetic powers were enlisted as authoritative signs.16 Dreams were especially prominent in conversion narratives: Abner de Burgos/Alfonso de Valladolid (ca. 1260‒1347), for example, recounts his conversion in his preface to Mostrador de justicia through a series of dreams in which he was

Jean faced such a predicament in undertaking this translation, as he was most probably already prestigiously employed in the Archbishop of Seville’s court.

15 H. Schirmann, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Provençe (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1961), 1.2:557‒575 (in Hebrew). See also the discussion of Ben Menachem concerning the motif of misfortune in Naphtali Ben Menachem, “Ha-Ra’aba’s Complaint about his Misfortune,” Sinai 24 (1948): 68‒71 (in Hebrew).

16 Dreaming in the Middle Ages; see Jean-Claude Schmitt’s discussion of the repeated use of dreams in narratives of conversion in The Conversion of Herman the Jew, trans. Alex J. Novikoff, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 67‒113; Michael Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 100.



encouraged to forsake his errant faith and become a Christian. As Ryan Szpiech argued, narratives of conversion dreams often engaged a double task of both validating the personal experience and granting authority to the polemic mes-sage in the text.17 Jean of Avignon’s dream seemingly consciously follows this genre: his encounter with a stranger telling him to change his ways and the use of such verses as “awake! Why are you asleep” (Jonah 1:6) were a standard of the genre, as were eschatological images in such narratives. But Jean’s preface is not a straight-forward narrative of conversion. Indeed, the act of conversion is nowhere explicit in the text; instead, we find mixed imagery that invites mul-tiple readings and enables readers’ oblivion of that which does not conform to their beliefs.

The dream and its images are taken from various passages in the Hebrew Bible, frequently quoted in medieval Hebrew poetry. The poem’s format is also recognizable to the Hebrew readers, allowing the text to “pass” as a “Jewish” text. However, a number of images depicting the inverted world also con-vey clear Christological associations. The following are a few examples: Jean describes seeing flying oxen gliding in the sky as eagles; the language recalls Ezekiel 1:10, but also the Book of Revelation 4:6 and the symbols of the apostles Luke and John.18 Jean also describes a keystone that rises against its natural inclination; while this symbolism can be read to portray the turning of the nat-ural order of the world, the keystone also often symbolized Christ. This attri-bution was based on the Gospels’ reiteration of Jesus’ identification of himself (or his teachings) as the stone that was cast away by the builders and came to be a cornerstone—or in some instances, a keystone.19 Commentators from the church fathers on, and later authors of polemic works in particular, associated this image with the Jews’ rejection of Jesus.20 Thus, the rising keystone may be understood to refer both to Jesus’s resurrection and to his negation by the Jews. The dual imagery of the stone reappears in a description of a rising valley carrying forth “a stone of stumbling” and “a rock of offence.” These hindering blocks appear in Isaiah 8:14 as God’s threat to avenge those who betray him.

17 Ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Readings and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 159‒167.

18 “Appendix.”19 On the affinity of keystone and corner stone, see: Gerhard Lander, “The Symbolism of the

Biblical Cornerstone in the Medieval West,” Medieval Studies 4 (1942): 43‒60.20 Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22. See also, Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians 2:20‒22. For the identi-

fication of the Jews with the builders, see Alfonso de Valladolid [attributed], Libro de las tres creencias (Manuscrito de la Biblioteca Nacional de España 9302), ed. Rafael Herrera Guillén (Murcia, Biblioteca Saavedra Fajardo, 2004), fol. 27v‒28r. Ramon Martí, Pugio fidei (Paris: Hanault, 1651), 274, 422.

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Peter’s first epistle 2:8 and Paul’s epistle to the Romans 9:32‒33 re-appropriated these images of rocks to relate to the failure of the Israelites to believe and follow Jesus. This argument concerning the betrayal of Jews, which Jerome developed, also became a well-repeated trope in the religious polemics of the period and appears in Ramon Martí’s Pugio fidei adversus Mauros et Judaeos,21 among other contemporaneous writings.

The coat of blood, which the Seraph instructs Jean to exchange for a coat of learning, is another central image in the opening poem. The opposition of blood and knowledge evokes blood libels and persecution and the ongoing cul-tural association of the relationship between Jews and Christians as associated with blood.22 The exchange of clothes is a powerful metaphor for conversion; yet once again, Jean’s intention is ambiguous: one can read Bernard of Gordon’s book as the knowledge assumed after a period of calamities and misfortune.

The dream’s religious duality, susceptible to both Jewish and Christian read-ings, recalls the Opusculum of Herman the Jew, who brought his dream before a rabbi and a priest seeking their interpretations and guidance. Each under-stood the narrative and images in accordance with his respective religious beliefs. In his analysis of the narrative, Jean-Claude Schmitt noted the advan-tage of the coded language and imagery of dreams as particularly disposed for multilayered readings.23 The author of the Opusculum directly comments on the possibility of multiple readings of dreams, but he resolves this possible duality by identifying only the Christian one as truthfully valid. Jean, in con-trast, enables the multiplicity of meanings. In fact, the text is reticent to offer an interpretation and never becomes explicitly polemic. Instead, Jean’s preface is a hybrid text, expressing both Jewish and Christian ideas without resolve. Its hybridity resembles the literature of authors who converted from Judaism to Christianity in Iberia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who voiced

21 Jerome, Hieronymus ad Hedibiam, De quaestionibus XII, in Patrologia Latina cursus com-pleta serie latina, ed. J.P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris: J.P. Migne, 1844–1864), 22:1000; Martí, Pugio fidei, 274.

22 One of the prominent examples of this association appears in the text Jean is translat-ing, Lilium medicine, where Bernard of Gordon reiterates the theory that Jews are more prone to hemorrhoids. For a discussion of the transmission of this myth, see Peter Biller, “A Scientific View of Jews from Paris around 1300,” In Gli Ebrei e le scienze, 137‒168; for a discussion of Jean’s translation (and alteration) of this passage, see my “Transmitting medicine,” 138‒140. Blood was central to various aspects of Jewish-Christian relations in the later Middle Ages, and scholars received growing attention by scholars. See, e.g., David Biale, Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol between Jews and Christians (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 81‒122.

23 Schmitt, The Conversion of Herman, 68‒69.



the ongoing complexity of conversion. This complexity took many forms: some external—the fear of persecution and the inability to partake fully in Christian society; others internal—questions of faith and belonging. Justly indeed, scholarly attempts to delineate a single “converso voice” have been met with criticism.24 And yet, irony and the use of a “double language” or “coded lan-guage” reappear in texts that contemporaneous converts wrote as devices for expressing concerns about their political situation and social malaise and as a means to convey complex relationships with the two faiths.25

In a recent article discussing Profiat Duran’s Hebrew letter Al tehi ka-avotekha (Be not like your fathers), Maud Kozodoy has demonstrated the existence of similar use of irony, coded language, and intentional ambiguity beyond the linguistic and geographical boundaries of Castile. Duran’s use of biblical verse and word play produce at face value a letter of praise to a fel-low convert, yet covertly intimate criticism of Christian dogma. As Kozodoy notes, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Duran’s critique was dis-cernible to contemporary readers, as he does not make his contempt explicit anywhere. This implicit, ulterior meaning is characteristic of literature written in confrontational contexts across the religious barrier. Jean, on the other side of the “convert spectrum,” applied a similar strategy, never directly stating his

24 See Elaine Wertheimer, “Converso ‘Voices’ in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Spanish Literature,” in Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond: Departures and Change, ed. Kevin Ingram (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 97‒119. See also Amy Aronson-Friedman and Gregory B. Kaplan, eds., Marginal Voices: Studies in Converso Literature of Medieval and Golden Age Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

25 For a survey of the notion of converso literature, see Gregory B. Kaplan, The Evolution of Converso Literature: The Writings of the Converted Jews of Medieval Spain (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2002), 1‒6; Eleazar Gutwirth, “From Jewish to Converso Humour in Fifteenth-Century Spain,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 67 (1990): 223‒233. Gregory B. Kaplan suggested that the converso code alludes to the social marginaliza-tion of conversos (38‒39). Gutwirth argued that conversos developed a humorous use of allusions and quotes that was closely connected to the heritage of Jewish humor, which employed similar devices and built on a shared knowledge to which Christians were often not privy. In a broader analysis, Yirmiyahu Yovel posited that converso literature introduced a new form of permanently double-edged identity; see, The Other Within: The Marranos: Split Identity and Emerging Modernity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 263‒283. Just criticism has been raised against suggestions of the exclusiv-ity of the converso use of irony and similar literary ploys, which also led to an exaggera-tion of the concept of the converso; see, e.g., Miriam Bodian’s review of Yovel’s book in The American Historical Review 115.2 (2010): 616‒617. My use of the literary terms is not intended to classify Jean as a converso, which would be both anachronistic and contrary to his use of language, but rather to draw attention to his coded language.

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Christian devotion but only alluding to it for those whose ears were open to the message.

Jean’s hesitance may be ascribed to his own religious uncertainty or, rather, to his desire to accommodate his Hebrew readers by refraining from confron-tation that would potentially hinder the book’s success. Yet, the evasiveness in his text relates not only to his chosen religion. In contrast to works such as Opusculum or Al tehi ka-avotekha, which focus on a religious polemic, Jean’s religious imagery and narrative collapses once he awakens from his dream. The poem he is inspired to create and the resolution of the narrative that fol-lows point to another meaning altogether, framing the unsettling images of the confounded visions of an impoverished man. Rather than finding the true faith, we learn that Jean is searching to find fortune. To some extent, this is an ironic moment in itself: he uses very elevated language to portray mundane distress. This device can be construed as a ploy that ultimately undermines the importance of religious reflections. Nevertheless, such a cynical outlook may be overly dismissive of the internal turmoil expressed in the language of sin and punishment in the vision.

By attributing a more sincere tone to the short page-and-a-half preface, we may consider it a self-portrayal of the translator as an anguished man whose dependence on the book is both financial and spiritual. Though economic profit led him to undertake the task, his financial state was detrimental to his mental and spiritual well being. In writing, “And my fate was dreary day and night/ and trembling was my mind,”26 he clearly considered himself cursed, melancholic, and morose.27 Finally, the allusion in the poem to the author’s Hebrew name (Moses) and its association with the biblical Moses enables Jean to depict himself as a lone and misunderstood man, but worthy, and belong-ing to a great line of prophets.28 Jean wrote: “When He gives to all, His hand is light/ while to Moses He gives with a heavy hand,” linking his destitute feeling to being forsaken by God. Jean’s failure to succeed in his medical vocation is thus intertwined on an emotional level with his faith; this, perhaps, is what drove him to convert.

Notwithstanding this attempt to interpret Jean’s preface as a unified text, all the above readings should be applied with caution. Quite plausibly, the preface

26 “And my gate was dreary day and night/and trembling was my mind” (“Appendix.”).27 “Lit my gloomy face like lightning, / carrying away the black blood from my arteries.”

(“Appendix.”).28 On the messianic association with the name Moshe, see, Israel Y. Yuval, “Moshe Redivivus:

Ha-Rambam as Helper to the Messiah,” Zion 72:2 (2007): 161‒188 (in Hebrew with English abstract).



is a collage of pieces Jean wrote at various stages of his life, prior to and follow-ing his conversion. For example, the line in which he refers to himself by his Hebrew name may suggest that the poem was written earlier than the pref-ace or the incipit. As only one manuscript of the translation and two identical copies of the preface have survived, it is impossible at present to determine the chronological sequence of the work’s composition. We remain, then, with Jean’s hybrid duality as a convert, which foreshadows the hybridity of his trans-lation of Lilium medicine, to be discussed below.

Translation and Transmission

Translating medical texts from Latin into Hebrew could pose cause for con-cern for medieval translators, lest medical advice conflict with Jewish lore; yet evidence exists that several rabbinical authorities allowed the use of non-kosher foods as medications and even authorized the use of Christian heal-ing charms in order to save a patient’s life, without evoking criticism.29 Joseph Ziegler has shown that the translations of Arnau de Vilanova into Hebrew generally include dietary advice prescribing the eating of non-kosher foods, though in certain passages the translator or scribe chose to erase such recom-mendations.30 Discussing the translations of charms, Katelyn Mesler showed an ongoing dilemma shared by translators and copyists of Latin medical works, regarding the integration or omission of Christian charms.31 The chal-lenge of translation, however, was not limited to medications and treatments, but rather extended to the culture in which the medical text was embedded. Latin medicine often included and presented a Christian world view through terminology and practices, even in absence of specific endorsement of prayer or charms as medicine. Frequently, in fact, the non-medical Christian terms presented the translator with the most difficult challenges. In such cases, translators into Hebrew struggled not only with the propriety and efficacy of the content, but also with its relevance and even comprehensibility to his presumed readers. Thus, translators had to decide whether to dilute or

29 Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, 80.30 Joseph Ziegler, “Religion and Medicine: On the Adaptation of Latin and Vernacular

Medical Texts to Hebrew Readership,” Würzburger medizinhistorische Mitteilungen 18 (1999): 149–158.

31 Katelyn Mesler, “The Three Magi and Other Christian Motifs in Medieval Hebrew Medical Incantations: A Study in the Limits of Faithful Translation,” in Latin into Hebrew: 1:161‒218. See also, Cohen-Hanegbi, “Transmitting Medicine,” 132‒134.

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transmit the Christian associations embedded in the works they translated. In this respect, Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicine contains some challeng-ing passages. A number of chapters in the Lilium discuss common Christian religious practices, mention popular Christian views, and contain verses and references to religious terminology that may be irrelevant and unfamiliar—if not displeasing—to Hebrew readers.32

As a translator, Jean struggled with the task of transmitting such Christian content. Throughout the work, he employed several methods of translation, alternating between them to produce a faithful translation that would be friendly to the Jewish reader. At times, he looked for Hebrew synonyms to down-play Bernard’s choice of words that carried Christian connotations, used trans-literations that emphasized the foreign origin of certain words, omitted words and passages, and altered passages altogether. These tactics were prevalent in other translations of medical works into Hebrew; however, what character-ized Jean’s translation were the unusual solutions he proposed to resolve such conflicts, above all, his rather permissive inclusion of Christian content and terms. Notwithstanding his texts’ friendliness to his Jewish readership, Jean reveals openness towards Christianity in his avoidance of derogatory words that translators often used when referring to Christian practices and in the few omissions within the text. Yet his linguistic choices reveal that his method shifted and his approach was intricate (if not indecisive) in handling the Christian features of the medical text—perhaps attesting to his ongoing inner debate concerning the best way to translate the work for his Jewish readers. Some of the more extraordinary examples are presented below, relating to inclusion of prayers and marked religious words. Since Jean’s translation sur-vived in one manuscript that was copied from another exemplar, we can only tentatively ascribe particular word-choice preferences, alterations, or omis-sions to the primary translator.33 However, as the style of the text is uncommon and deviates from most Hebrew translations that usually strive for Hebrew equivalents, and because is improbable that a copyist would decide to re-insert a Hebrew word in transliteration, it seems safe to assume that the existent

32 Luke Demaitre refers to several of the allusions to religious practices in Bernard’s text. Luke E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: Professor and Practitioner (Toronto, ON: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980), 159‒161.

33 Leon Joseph of Carcassonne’s introduction to Gerard de Solo’s Practica super nono Almansoris harshly criticizes a translation of Lilium medicine, describing it as a shaky ladder. Which specific translation he was referring to remains unclear, but potentially his criticism was directed at Yequtiel’s. Leon Joseph’s introduction is printed in García-Ballester, Ferre, and Feliú, “Jewish Appreciation,” 107–117, as Appendix D.



manuscript reflects Jean’s own language, at least to a large extent. In order to elucidate the distinctiveness of Jean’s choices, I compare them in some places to a translation produced about twenty years later by Yequtiel ben Salomon of Narbonne (1387), which seems to have circulated more widely given its extant numbers of copies.

The author’s decision to include Christian material is evident in his transla-tion of a passage of Bernard’s chapter on epilepsy, which describes a church ritual for healing epileptics. As recent research has shown, the translation of this passage presented obvious difficulties for translators.34 Unlike other trans-lators and copyists, Jean did not omit any part of this difficult text, despite a full appreciation of its thorny nature. Jean began by ascribing the church ritual to Christians by translating the word “church” as their synagogue,35 but then proceeded to offer a full description of the ritual. Throughout the pas-sage, Jean shifted between transliterations and translations of the Christian terms. Thus, we find several words in transliteration: missa (Mass), evingily (Evangels), san’ krotz (Holy Cross); part of the incantation itself; and certain Christian terms rendered in Hebrew: ieiuniis quatuor temporum—the fast of Ember days as tzom ha-arbaʿah itim (צום הארבעה עתים) and sacerdos fidelis as ha-Kohen baʿal ha-nefesh (הכהן בעל הנפש). Potentially, these choices may have been determined by the quality of the equivalent substitutes for these very precise terms; the use of transliterations may have been merely a matter of sheer convenience. Notably, however, we must account for the literary impact of the use of transliterations in the text. In contrast to the Hebrew words, trans-literations maintain the foreign origin of the text and mark the cross-cultural transmission that is embedded in them. The Christian transliterated words in the text convey not only their non-Hebrew origins, but also their religious “otherness.” Once inserted in the text, however, they become part of its tex-ture. Thus, the transliterated words sharpen an internal duality: they signify an inherent otherness within the Hebrew text. As such, the text itself initiates a possible encounter between Judaism and Christianity, no less than between

34 Mesler, “The Three Magi,” 164‒191; and Cohen-Hanegbi, “Transmitting Medicine,” 132‒134. Bernard’s passage also attracted some discussion of the relationship between magic, medicine, and religion. See Demaitre, Doctor Bernard, 159; Lea T. Olsan, “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice,” Social History of Medicine 16.3 (2003): 352‒353.

35 Jean translated “Et postea vadant ad ecclesiam” as “and then they will go to the house of prayer, that is their synagogue,” (ואחר ילכו לבית התפלה הוא בית הכנסת שלהם), affirming that the ritual is a Christian one. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 65r. Bernard de Gordon, Lilium medicinae (Lyon, 1574), 232.

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the Hebrew reader and Christian notions and practices. A Hebrew reader turn-ing to Jean’s translation of the Lilium would be introduced to a Christian prac-tice and perhaps be tempted to adopt it in time of need.

The significance of Jean’s translation of the passage on epilepsy is all the more apparent in view of the different manuscripts containing Yequtiel’s trans-lation. What appears to be Yequtiel’s primary translation differs only slightly from Jean’s (though the former’s word choice tends to be more antagonistic).36 Yet, a number of the copyists of Yequtiel’s work omitted this passage altogether, at times even adding a comment that the passage was dropped because it dis-cussed practices unbefitting Jews.37 The omission and its explicit reason attest to the threat underlying the inclusion of such knowledge. Jean, it appears, was more ambivalent, at once distancing and absorbing Christian terminology.

Elsewhere, I argued that Jean considered the transmission of medical knowl-edge to be of such importance that he allowed himself to incorporate relevant religious material.38 The case of the cures for epilepsy offers a good example of this rule. Focusing specifically on Jean’s use of transliterations, I argue here that their use produces and portrays the dual relationship with Christian knowledge. Although transliterations were very common in medieval Hebrew and at times foreign terms were integrated into the daily language, when they reflected Christian terminology they were still fundamentally foreign. In Jean’s text, their function recurrently signifies a duality that both includes and alien-ates Christian terminology. At the lexical level, this duality also serves at times as a means for commentating on the text, and at times a possible indication of Jean’s personal religious ambivalence that infiltrated the text.

In a number of cases, the transliterations imply that the content of the par-ticular phrase is foreign or at least not natively Hebrew and thus irrelevant to the Hebrew readers. In the chapter on the condition of nightly suffocation named incubus, Jean translated Bernard’s original opening paragraph inaccu-rately. Bernard began by presenting two variant beliefs about the nature of the

36 Yequtiel uses the derogatory word galach—shaven—for a priest. In referring to Yequtiel’s translation, I consulted Katelyn Mesler’s analysis of variants in her appendix to her “The Three Magi.” Mesler distinguishes the manuscripts according to four parameters of translation of chants and prayers. I examined manuscripts of each of the groups she iden-tified but rely here mainly on Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Opp. 178, which seems to be one of the more comprehensive (inclusive) translations. For Galach see fol. 94r.

37 See Mesler, “The Three Magi,” 171‒178.38 Jean dropped religious references when their inclusion seems to bear no medical infor-

mation, as in the case of the omission of the prayer “Ave Maria,” which was used as a marker of time that Bernard mentioned in the chapter on epilepsy. See, “Transmitting Medicine,” 137‒138.



incubus: the first, maintained by theologians, is that the incubus is a demon; the other, held by the lay public, is that it is an old woman. Physicians, the text continues, understand this phenomenon as a disease. Jean’s translation dif-ferentiates more clearly than Bernard between incubo (the medical condition) and incubus (the demon). Jean then suggests that both the theologians and the public understand incubus to be an old woman who suffocates sleeping youths. This identification of incubus as a demon is presented as the primary explanation for the term.39 This latter understanding may well be a misreading of the Latin original. Nevertheless, by not associating this belief with a particu-lar discipline or group, one may read this explanation as a commonly known, and perhaps correct, fact. Furthermore, by claiming that both theologians and the public hold misguided notions about the condition, Jean devalues the theologians.

Moreover, the use of transliterations emphasizes the following two points: (1) maska is mentioned as the popular name for incubus (a Provençal word for witch), denoting that it is considered to be an unlearned belief; (2) the words “theologians” and “public” (vulgares)—ולגאריש -are also transliter—טולוגוש, ated Romance words, intimating that the reference does not relate to Jewish thinkers nor perhaps, by association, to the Jewish public.40 Here too, the use of Romance words seems to signal the foreignness of the provided information and to hint to its fallacy, as in the same passage a more trivial use of the word public is translated into Hebrew.41

Transliteration also appears in the chapter on melancholy in which Bernard’s Lilium includes a list of possible manifestations of melancholic illusions. Bernard noted that some melancholics “would deem themselves

39 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 63v. For Bernard’s treatment of the incubus, see: Maaike van der Lugt, “The Incubus in Scholastic Debate: Medicine, Theology and Popular Belief,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2001), 175‒200, see esp. 176‒177.

40 Jean clearly could have translated vulgares into Hebrew, as in the following quote from his chapter on congelation: “כשיראו ההמון כיוצא באלו”. For Bernard’s “vulgares quando vident talem,” see Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 50v; Bernard de Gordon, Lilium medicinae, 197. In a similar vein, Jean could have chosen an equivalent for theolo-gians to denote men of learning; consider, for example, Yequtiel’s translation to toryyim, that is, men of Torah. This translation is consistent in the manuscripts that retain the pas-sage. See, e.g., Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Opp. 178, fol. 92r. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hunt 606, fol. 36v, omits this passage.

41 These words are distinctly Romance, not Latin transliteration; a similar pattern appears in the chapter on congelatio for the translation of rapture. See “Transmitting Medicine,” 135.

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prophets and inspired by the Holy Spirit and will begin to prophesize and say many things about the future or the state of the world or on the state of the antichrist.”42 Jean’s translation was generally faithful, with slight alterations: “inspired by the Holy Spirit” is rendered Kedoshav (His holy men)—not a semantically identical translation, but one that maintains the essence of the original. The second half of the sentence is shortened, mentioning only the false visions that concern the future (not the present).43 Why Jean made these changes is unclear, but perhaps he thought they achieved better coherence in the text. Strikingly, however, he saw no need to translate or alter the signifi-cantly Christian word antichrist, which appears in transliteration. In this case as well, it seems that Jean could not think of an appropriate Hebrew equiva-lent; nevertheless, in maintaining this language, Jean introduced the Hebrew reader to a Christian term imbued with Christian thought. Whether or not he thought his supposed audience would recognize and understand this word, the Christian word erodes the cohesive Hebrew passage with knowledge of the other culture. This Christian intrusion is further evident when compared with Yequtiel ben Salomon of Narbonne’s decision to translate the same passage and to offer a Hebrew term that avoids the mention of Christ—he who dis-putes the Messiah (Holek la-mashiah). Though the term itself recalls Christian theology the translation choice somewhat aids in subduing it.44

A similar transliteration appears in the chapter on stuttering. Bernard dis-tinguished between different forms of speech impediments, one of which is the repetition of the first syllable. Jean translated the exact example that Bernard chose to use: “and at times the impairment is in sylabas that is to say, the letters, as it happens with people who want to say dominus but multiply the first letter and say dodominus.”45

42 “Aliis videtur quod sint prophetae et quod sint inspirati a spiritu sancto et incipiunt prophetare et multa futura praedicere sive de statu mundi aut antichristi.” Bernard de Gordon, Lilium medicinae, 211.

43 “And some of them would imagine that they are God’s prophets and his saints and they would begin speaking about the affairs of the future world such as the Messiah and the antichrist.” העתידים רבים ענינים לדבר ויתחילו וקדושיו האל נביאי בשהם שידמו ומהם .Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 56r מהעולם הם המשיח והאנטיקרישט.

”ולקצתם ידמה שיהיו נביאים ושהושפע עליהם רוח הקודש ויתחילו להתנבא ולספר דברים 44 See Oxford, Bodleian .עתידים אם מעניני העולם ואם מהחולק למשיח ועם מעניינים אחרים“Library, MS Opp. 178, fol. 85r; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hunt 606 again omits this sen-tence, see, fol. 30v.

”ולפעמים הפסד בשילאבש, רצוני האותיות, כמו שיקרה לאנשים שירצו לומר דומינוס יכפילו 45.Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 97r האות הראשון ויאמרו דודומינוס“



Why did Jean leave in dominus in its Latin form? Bernard’s text concerned speech impediments, and he may have intentionally referenced a commonly spoken word. Jean’s decision to retain the original word may show his aware-ness of the prevalence of the spoken Romance word. However, again com-paring Jean’s translation with Yequtiel’s, we see that the seemingly technical matter still influences the sequence of the text. Yequtiel favored the Hebrew equivalent Adonay, thereby forgoing expression of the exact nature of the impediment for the sake of preserving the flow of the translation.46 Jean’s choice, even if pursued for technical reasons, allows the Christian tone to infil-trate the text.

A final example is Jean’s reiteration, word for word, of Bernard of Gordon’s advice to cure sleeplessness: according to Bernard, if all other cures fail, the patient should recite the evening prayers—ha-Dominicales —and he will fall asleep immediately.47 This statement appears in Jean’s text without any qualifi-cation that such a treatment should not apply for Jews; as such, it serves as per-haps the most blatant introduction of a Christian practice into the translation.48

All the above examples point to the complex role of transliterations in Jean’s text. While transliterations were commonly applied as a necessary means of transmitting technical information in Hebrew, the use of Christian terminology in transliteration imbued the text with Christian cultural and religious infor-mation. The comparisons with Yequtiel’s parallel text suggest that often, the insertion of such knowledge could have been avoided, or at least downplayed. We may posit that Jean was simply a less proficient translator than Yequtiel and was unable to find Hebrew equivalents. A broader comparison of his lan-guage with earlier and better-known Hebrew medical works could illuminate the extent of Jean’s acquaintance with and reliance on the already existing cor-pus of medicine and better reveal his grasp of the language. Evidently however, regardless of such further research, even if his choices were unconscious or inadequate, they nonetheless indicate his openness to and even immersion in Christian terminology and his inclination to transmit them onwards to his intended Jewish readership. Jean’s medical translation became, perhaps unin-tentionally, a surface for an encounter with Christian terminology. Medicine

46 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Opp. 178, fol. 129v. Some manuscripts, omit this sentence altogether. See, e.g., Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hunt 606, fol. 71v‒72r.

Oxford, Bodleian ,”ואם כל אלה לא יועילו תתחיל להתפלל התפלות הדומינקאלש ותכף תישן“ 47Library, MS Mich. 552, fol. 54r.

48 Yequtiel, in contrast, translated this as the prayer of the blessed Lord, “yehegeh bitefilat Ha-El yitbarakh.” Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Opp. 178, fol. 83r; or prayer of the Lord—Tefilat ha-El, in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hunt 606, fol. 29r.

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became the instrument through which Jean introduced his readers to Christian practices and language, much to the way he himself was introduced to them.

Some twenty years after this translation, Jean, or Juan, wrote another book. Most likely, this new medical work was not intended for Jewish readers, but rather for fellow Christians. Nevertheless, this publication also intertwines medicine religion, and even religious polemic, and the author’s religious con-versation remains apparent.

Medicine as Polemics

Jean of Avignon’s Sevillana medicina poses two major difficulties for scholarly pursuit. First, the work seems to be a translation of Jean’s Latin text, which he himself most likely did not produce;49 second, the available version is a much later printed edition, compiled by Nicolás Monardes in 1541. To date, schol-ars discussing the work have focused primarily on the Castilian language of the extant text. Philologists and scholars of Castilian literature have revealed the text’s specific use of words and vocabulary, but shied away from discuss-ing its content, which remains largely ignored. Moreover, the book’s content presents a further difficulty for scholars. As many hands were involved in the text’s transmission, the true identity of the author, or authors, remains unde-termined. In the pursuit of this enigma and given his interest in Castilian texts, Michael Solomon recently discussed Jean and Monardes almost interchange-ably.50 While this approach comprises an attempt to avoid misleading assump-tions about the texts, it seems to have overlooked Jean’s distinctive treatment of religious notions and practices. I contend that these distinctive and unusual themes, which uncover a particular mentality and preoccupation, permit us to consider the body of the work as reflecting Jean’s own authorship.

Sevillana medicina is an unusual medical book for its time. Its first chap-ters are an innovative application of medical theories about the qualities of air

49 The transliterations in Jean’s translation of the Lilium are of Provençal words, or those influenced by Provençal, suggesting that this was, perhaps, his strongest language.

50 Michael Solomon emphasized Monardes’s role in editing Jean’s work to accommodate lay readers, and argues that Monardes, through his introduction, altered Jean’s intention of producing a professional treatise for a popular readership. This claim seems overstated in view of the genre of the treatise, which was usually directed towards non-professional readers. See Michael Solomon, Fictions of Well-Being: Sickly Readers and Vernacular Medical Writing in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 36‒37.



and its impact on health within the specific topography and environment of Seville. No similar attempt is extant in this period, and as Eliezer Gutwirth has suggested, this inquiry might be indicative of Jean’s particular interest in and concern for the city that took him in.51 The book continues with an in-depth analysis of the rest of the non-naturals affecting health (air being the first of the six, which also include food and drink, sleeping and waking, purgation and emetics, exercise, and the accidents or movements of the soul). This arrange-ment follows the popular genre of regimen sanitatis literature. Jean’s format strays from this genre, however, in offering elaborate discussions exceeding the standard scope on each chapter of the non-naturals and by adding sup-plementary chapters on adjacent topics. Regimina literature often combined learned and practical knowledge of medicine, introducing educated but lay readers to the basic medical rules for the preservation of health.52 Jean’s elabo-rations are unusual in their breadth and depth, providing a text more theo-retical and learned than most works in the genre.53 Yet, the dedication to his patron Archbishop Pedro Gómez Barroso (1331‒1390), as well as the format of the work, suggest that his intended readership was the local elite. Presuming he did write the text in Latin, Jean quite likely did not expect his book to reach a Jewish readership; seemingly, however, as will be demonstrated below, he did have Judaism and the Jewish community in mind when composing it.

Religious faith and practices figure prominently throughout the text. The author’s Christian religious affiliation is professed audibly throughout Sevillana medicina. Two brief examples exemplify the extent of his conver-gence of faith in medical teachings, which was unusual in the medical litera-ture of the period. First, Jean included the seven cardinal sins in the standard list of emotions (“movimientos spirituals del anima,” in his words) that should

51 Eleazar Gutwirth, “Dialogue and the City, circa 1400: Pero Ferruz and the Rabbis of Alcalá,” Jewish History 21 (2007): 43‒67, esp. 57‒58.

52 Two thorough studies of the genre exclude Jean’s works but provide a good basis for assessing the unique nature of Sevillana medicina: Pedro Gil Sotres supplemented the scholarly edition of Arnau de Villanova’s Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum with research into the chronological development of the genre through the time of Arnau. Marilyn Nicoud published an encompassing work that focuses on the regimen literature of Italy and France. See Pedro Gil-Sotres, Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum, ed. Luis García-Ballester and Michael McVaugh, in AVOMO (Barcelona: Seminarium Historiae Scientiae Barchinone, 1996), X. 1; Marilyn Nicoud, Les régimes de santé au Moyen Âge, 2 vols. (Rome: École française de Rome, 2007).

53 The preface of the book mentions another part that treats particular illnesses in the fash-ion of Lilium medicine and similar compendia; however, this text has not survived (if it was actually written). See, Sevillana medicina, 84.

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be tempered to preserve health and suggested that observing the seven works of mercy (feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, etc.) may procure mental health. This popular scheme of vices and virtues was certainly part of a discourse of spiritual health widespread in late medieval devotional texts, but its inclusion in medical literature is quite rare.54 In creating this connection, Jean explicitly established the inseparable relationship of mental and spiri-tual health to religious adherence.55 Second, in another chapter dealing with the process of consuming a meal, Jean offered a very detailed account of the various stages: inter alia, he mentioned the setting of the table, the washing of hands and face, and the recitation of the blessings before beginning to eat. In this context, he cited the Latin blessings word for word.56 Other examples of the insertion of religious terminology and thought into the work are extant, many of them deriving from the Bible and relating to the Jewish commentary tradition.

Several scholars have already noted the animosity toward the Jewish com-munity that appears in Sevillana medicina, most sharply in Jean’s description of the Judería as a particularly noxious and putrefying area.57 Jean’s allegations in this passage assume a scientific language, explaining that the region pro-duces heat, which changes the city’s climate and brings diseases. While in the above examples from Sevillana medicina medical knowledge and healthy living were an ancillary to religious faith, in this context, the connection was raised to confirm religious antagonism. Jean further supported and substantiated his claim by means of a curious detail that has been overlooked, a verse from Psalms 78:66: “And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts,” which Bernard of Gordon quoted in his Lilium medicine as one of the reasons for the alleged tendency of Jews to suffer hemorrhoids.58 Did Jean learn this anti-Jewish slur from the medical master? This might be the case, revealing an instance of

54 Richard Newhauser, The Treatise on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993). In the following century there were even Hebrew adaptations to this genre: Ram Ben-Shalom, “The First Jewish Work on the Seven Sins and the Four Virtues,” Mediaeval Studies 75 (2013): 205‒270.

55 Ram Ben-Shalom, pp. 487‒491. See also Na’ama Cohen-Hanegbi, Accidents of the Soul: Physicians and Confessors on the Conception and Treatment of Emotions in Italy and Spain, 12th‒15th Centuries (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 2011), 80‒81, 251.

56 Sevillana medicina, 280‒293.57 “El ayre de Seuilla es caliente y humedo [. . .] por el pudrimiento y por la corrupcion

que sale de la juderia, que son malos, enconados y condenados de muchas dolencias.” Sevillana medicina, 91.

58 “Segun dixo David ‘E firio Dios sus enemigos en el trasero’: verguença para simepre jamas les ha dado.” Sevillana medicina, 91.



the culturally embedded nature of medicine of the era. Yet in comparison to Bernard of Gordon, or in fact to any other fourteenth-century medical author, Jean’s preoccupation with religious notions and with Judaism in particular clearly extends beyond the standard cultural references.

José Mondéjar already noted the high frequency of quotations from the Old Testament in Jean’s Sevillana medicina, remarking that they significantly exceed those from the New Testament. Mondéjar has convincingly understood Jean’s inclination to the Hebrew Bible as evidence of his religious past: “La reli-giosidad que impregna el tratado de Aviñón es mas judaica que cristiana.”59 Indeed, Old Testament references do appear in many different instances in the text. The first chapter on coitus opens with the commandment from Genesis 1:28 to procreate.60 The story of Jacob’s (el patriarca) intentional breeding of spotted sheep is mentioned twice.61 Abraham is cited as an example of an elderly man who was able to procreate in his old age;62 he is again mentioned, alongside Jacob and Rachel, in Jean’s discussion of the power of medicine to influence infertility.63 Jean quoted Genesis 2:24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh” in his discussion of the difference between a parent’s love for his children and the love between man and wife.64 Jean’s discussion of epidem-ics summons further references to the Hebrew Bible, including the stories of Sodom and Gomorra, Avimelech, God’s punishment of the people of Israel in the desert (Numbers 21:6), Samuel, and King David. Jean even mentioned the laws of sacrifice appearing in Leviticus in his discussion of foodstuff. In com-parison, Jean offered only two references to Apocrypha and New Testament texts: Ecclesiasticus-Ben Sirah and the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover, Matthew is quoted in the prologue and not in the body of the work, and the reference to Ecclesiasticus was one widely used by physicians to substantiate the divine ori-gin of medical knowledge and could have been drawn from medical discourse rather than from reading Ecclesiasticus itself.65

59 Sevillana medicina, 9.60 Sevillana medicina, 409.61 Sevillana medicina, 425, 489. Genesis 30:37‒43. He wrote: “Jacob placed painted rods

before the sheep when they copulated and the sheep that were conceived in front of these rods were born spotted, due to the influence of imagination on the body.”

62 Sevillana medicina, 440.63 Sevillana medicina, 451.64 Sevillana medicina, 459.65 Sevillana medicina, 73, 77, 454. On the physicians’ use of Ecclesiasticus 38:1‒7 see Joseph

Ziegler, Medicine and Religion ca. 1300: The Case of Arnau de Vilanova (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 231‒236.

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Some of the same Old Testament stories did appear in other Latin scien-tific and medical works of the period; for example, in a discussion of several natural philosophers, Jacob’s sheep were noted as an example of “spontaneous generation”—the scientific term explaining this process of the imprint of vision on offspring.66 Yet such abundance of Old Testament allusions within a medical treatise is unusual. The profusion of quotes in the Sevillana reminds of Jean’s preface to Lilium medicine and its verse-collated language. Clearly, Jean’s command of the Hebrew Bible was extensive, and Hebrew seems to have remained his language of faith despite his Baptism. Though one could argue that Jean’s application of Biblical verses is merely an additional expression of a hybrid text produced by a former Jew, his biblical allusions often extend beyond a mere matter of association inserted by habit for the sake of orna-menting the text. As will be argued below, the verses chosen and some of the medical topics treated are central to Christian-Jewish polemics of the period. While medicine remains the subject matter of the work, a religious debate was interlaced, ultimately forming an integral part of medical knowledge. Through these insertions, Jean established medical knowledge as further proof of his religious views. Medicine and his own medical guise as a physician provided authority and support to his religious message.

Such is the case in the chapter on meat, where Jean specified that quails are healthy to eat, because their complexion is temperate, or, according to other sources, hot and dry. This information, he continued, contradicts the incorrect notion that quail’s meat is bad because the bird feeds on poisonous plants—an opinion held by some Jews, who thus explained the death of the Israelites in the desert (Numbers 11:33).67 Jean rejected this view, concluding that it was not the meat that killed the Israelites but rather their sins and their “descono-cimiento,” echoing the epistle to the Hebrews 3:17 and the standard Christian commentary of the event as a prefiguration of the Jews’ rejection of Jesus.68

66 Maaike Van Der Lugt, Le Ver, le démon et la vierge : Les théories médiévales de la génération extraordinaire (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004), 258.

67 The idea that quail meat was poisonous circulated amongst Greek and Latin authors. See, e.g., Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, Patologia Latina, 82:468A. Note that Jean attributes this belief only to some Jews. The Talmud quotes Rabbi Hanina to have said that the quail was good food for the righteous and noxious for the evil. BT Yom.75b. The only elaborate mention of the poisonous nature of the quail appears in Abarbanel’s commentary on Numbers 11:32‒33. Though this commentary from ca. 1500 is late, it may represent oral commentary taught during Jean’s life. Don Isaac Abarbanel, Commentary on the Pentateuch: Numbers (Jerusalem: Bnei Arbal, 1984), 54 (in Hebrew).

68 Sevillana medicina, 231‒232; Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum libri duo, in Patrologia Latina, 23:326‒327; Isidore of Seville, Expositiones sacramentorum seu quaestiones in vetus testa-mentum, in Patrologia Latina, 83:297‒298.



Jean’s “religious” language may have been influenced by contemporary vernacular Iberian medical literature, which seems to exhibit a similar ten-dency. His colleague at the archbishop’s court, Estéfano of Seville, for instance, incorporated a religious catechism into his medical regimen Visita y consejo de médicos.69 Jean’s religiosity and preoccupation with issues of faith may also be attributed to his conversion, as a manifestation of fidelity to his new religion—as Jose Mondéjar suggested. To some extent, however, these expla-nations obscure the role medical writing seems to have had for Jean in serving as the arena for his religious polemics and his own personal religious odyssey. The following examples, which touch on central elements in the Catholic creed—virginal conception and remission of sins—further demonstrate the role medical writings played in Jean’s religious journey.

Jean discusses the weighty issue of the probability of virginal conception in one of the chapters concerning the influence of coitus on health. The chapter opens with a refutation of the possibility that conception, dependent on the mixture of male and female semen, may occur without “defloration.” Jean’s evi-dence is, however, not biological but biblical. If such conception were possible, Jean argues, the prophet Isaiah would not have written: “behold, the young woman shall conceive, as if it was a miracle.”70 This sentence, I argue, yields several inferences. It implicitly hints that medicine and biology must adhere to theological truths. Though Jean further argues against particular natural philo-sophical postulations with biological reasoning, the assertion of faith guides the correct understanding of natural order. This hierarchy relates not only to truths, but also to authority: the Bible is ranked of higher stature than the works of Aristotle and Avicenna.71 While this may seem an obvious position for a late medieval physician to take, it contrasts sharply with the attempts of most medical authors of the period to define the medical discipline as independent of theology.72 Jean’s decision to quote Isaiah is further notable for incorpo-rating a Christianized reading of the Bible as evidence, alluding between the

69 Little research has been conducted on Estéfano’s work in this regard; however, my find-ings on his treatment of emotions suggest this tendency. Cohen-Hanegbi, Accidents of the Soul, 174‒175, 280‒282. Estéfano de Sevilla, “Visita y consejo de medicos,” Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional 18052, ed. Enrica J. Ardemagni et al., Textos y concordancias electróni-cos del corpus médico español, ed. Teresa Herrera and Estela Gonzáles de Fauve (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1997). See also Guy Beaujouan, Science mediévale d’Espagne et d’alentour (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992), 1:23.

70 “Preterea, si pudiesse ser concebir virgin, sin corrompimiento, non dixera Ysayas: Ecce virgo concipiet por milagro.” Sevillana medicina, 442.

71 Jean explicitly mentions Avicenna’s Canon and Aristotle’s Liber de animales but the argu-ment refers to ideas Averroes expressed as well. Sevillana medicina, 443‒444.

72 See the more elaborate discussion on the topic below.

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lines to the Christian claim that evidence for Jesus already exists in the Old Testament. This verse, which was often used in Jewish-Christian polemics, sug-gests that Jean’s debate with Judaism motivated him to add this chapter that has no precedent in the medical regimina genre.

This direction is also reflected in Jean’s decision to include a discussion of insemination through bath water as a possibility for the fertilization of virgins. This proposition, which Averroes had raised, was seldom discussed in Latin sources up to the fifteenth century.73 The two examples appear in the commen-taries—a genre that is more philosophical and comprehensive and, in a way, more committed to respond to ideas circulating in the field than Jean’s writ-ings were (in fact, Jean was free to avoid uncomfortable topics). The authors of both of these commentaries, Jacopo da Forlí (1364‒1414) and Jacques Despars (ca. 1380‒1458), noted the religious difficulty with the possibility of bath insem-ination but brushed off the issue without paying much attention to it. Jacopo da Forlí even admitted that there is no real theoretical objection to the pos-sibility that such insemination may occur. Both were much more interested in clarifying the Galenic view of the process of conception than in defending the religious creed.74 Jean’s pronounced Christian argument therefore seems to be unusually dismissive of the medical argument. His desire to medically prove the miraculous nature of Mary’s conception, however, may be better under-stood in light of the circulation of stories of insemination by “dirty waters” among Jewish polemicists and in Hebrew satirical literature.75

Another discussion into which Jean interwove a religious debate appears in chapter 67, in which he discussed the necessity of medicine. Here, Jean pon-dered whether human medicine is capable of overturning a fate that has been set by the constellation of the stars. Jean suggested that man’s faculty of reason and his ability to learn and to discern good from bad allows him to preserve his health despite any astrological circumstances. This is quite a standard argu-ment for the necessity of medicine. Yet Jean developed the notion further, into a discussion of the perfection of God’s creation and man’s free will, ultimately turning the argument into a religious polemic. Asking why God hardened Pharaoh’s heart and why in Isaiah God ordered to “Make the heart of this peo-ple fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes,” (Isaiah 6:10), Jean chose to quote verses that clearly echoed the Christian claims against the Jews’ resis-tance to accept Jesus’s teachings. In another example of a multi-layered text,

73 Quoted in Maaike van der Lugt, Le Ver, le démon et la vierge, 101.74 Van der Lugt, Le ver, 99‒103, 129.75 Michele Klein, A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth (Philadelphia, PA:

Jewish Publication Society, 2000), 75‒56.



in Matthew 13:15, Jesus quotes a verse from Isaiah to explain his use of parables as a means of directing his message only to his followers. (In the extant edition of Jean’s book, the verse from Isaiah pointedly appears first in transliterated Hebrew and then again in Spanish). Jewish commentators, Jean noted, explain the curse as punishment for man’s sins, for which there is no remission and for which the sinners are eternally damned. According to Jean, “Esta respuesta del Limmud es falsa;” that is, the answer of the limud—i.e., Jewish commentary or perhaps Talmud—is incorrect. He relies on an abridged and somewhat altered verse from Ezekiel 18: 21‒22, explicating his own Catholic position: “on the day a sinner repents himself, none will be remembered of his past; and how much more a sinner he was and it was repented to him, that much is his prize.”76 Noticing that the argument regarding the possibility of remission for sins is quite distanced from the realm of medicine, Jean then returns to explain the value of medicine as was stated in the title of the chapter (“and because this question exceeds the realm of medicine I shall leave it and return to another question . . .”).77

But what are the boundaries of medicine? The examples above suggest that Jean was repeatedly hovering along the (imaginary) border between the reli-gious and medical disciplines. One can almost imagine Jean as he sat to write Sevillana medicina, his thoughts meandering from medicine to philosophy, then to theology, as all the while he attempted to keep a solid argument in each chapter. His inclusion of this mental excursion in the text demonstrates that for Jean, the disciplinary barrier was irrelevant and his understanding of one field fused into the other. Indeed, this perspective corresponds well with con-temporary scholarship that continues to find points of convergence between medicine and religion in the medieval period. Medical authors and their texts were influenced by the religious ideas and culture surrounding them, exempli-fied by the case of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium medicine.78 Physicians were often clerics or tied in some guise to the church, and often considered their ars as

76 “El dia quel pecador se repentira nunca le recordaran nada de lo passado; y quanto mas pecador fuere el ome y se arrepentiere dello, tanto mas es su gualardon.” JPS translation: “But if the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his transgressions that he hath committed shall be remembered against him; for his righ-teousness that he hath done he shall live.” Ezekiel 18: 21‒22.

77 “Y pues esta question sale fuera de Fisica dexarla he y tornare en otra question . . .” Sevillana medicina, 527.

78 Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, 259‒267; Chiara Crisciani, “History, Novelty and Progress in Scholastic Medicine,” in Osiris, 2nd Series, 6 (1990): 118‒139.

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God-given.79 Nevertheless, despite the religious framework in which medieval physicians worked, the place of theological argumentation was held in check. Contemporary medical authors such as Arnau de Villanova (1238‒1311), Maino de Maineri (1290‒ca. 1368) and Marsilio da Santa Sofia (d. 1405) continued to maintain that medicine should not overstep its discipline, but rather should present itself as an independent field adhering to its own authorities, along the lines of Galen and Avicenna’s arguments.80 Jacopo da Forlí’s admission that the laws of nature may allow virginal insemination, though faith considered it a miracle, demonstrates this line of thought. Indeed, Sevillana medicina stands out not only in its rather abundant admonitions of faith and references from the scriptures, but also in its attempt to bring together medical knowledge and religious faith. Jean’s claim and tone are thus more engaged and, I would argue, more polemical than that found in the writings of his Christian colleagues. As in the case of the emotions, mentioned above, Jean’s uncommon religious agenda is apparent in his recurrent references to the Old Testament and his allusions to the Jewish faith. Whether arguing against the Jewish community and Jewish beliefs or professing his genuine and fervent faith to his new co-religionists (and potential clients), medicine functions as a platform for Jean’s enabled Jean to express his passionate faith.

79 William J. Courtenay, “Curers of Body and Soul: Medical Doctors as Theologians,” in Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2001), 69‒75.

80 Jerome J. Bylebyl presents the theoretical scheme for the separation of the disciplines in his “The Medical Meaning of Physica” in Osiris, 2nd Series, 6 (1990): 16‒41. Arnau, an ardently devout man who authored several spiritual works that employ medical knowl-edge, was more reluctant about addressing theology openly in his medical works. Thus, despite a stated spiritual approach regarding the role of the physician and of medi-cine in general, Arnau did not perceive the science of medicine through a theological framework. Ziegler, Medicine and Religion 241‒245; Joseph Ziegler, “Arnau de Vilanova: A Case-Study of a Theologizing Physician,” in Actes de la “I Trobada Internacional d’Estudis sobre Arnau de Vilanova”, (Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1995), 249‒303. Maino de Maineri, in his Regimen sanitatis, quotes the scriptures on several occasions, but does not develop a theological argument. See Mayno de Maynerii, Regimen sanitatis magnini mediolanesis (Paris, 1483). See, e.g., fols. 143r‒144v.; Tiziana Pesenti’s detailed analysis of Marsilio Santasofia’s work mentions only invocations in introductions as religious con-tent and reveals far fewer references to the Scriptures than we find in Jean’s work; see Marsilio Santasofia tra corti e università: la carriera di un “monarcha medicine” del Trecento (Treviso: Antilia, 2003), 447‒448. Danielle Jacquart, “Medicine and Theology,” in Crossing Boundaries at Medieval Universities, ed. Spencer E. Young (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 213‒226; see esp. 222‒225.



Yet, the pervasiveness of the religious message in Sevillana medicina can be read as a project of consolidating the two sources of knowledge into one coher-ent view of the nature of health. The Bible in its Christian reading is used as a proof-text for medical claims, Christian beliefs are presented as aspects of medical knowledge, and Christian practices are rendered as part of a correct regimen to preserve health. Sevillana medicina conveys an implicit contention that Catholic faith is the necessary consequence of a learned understanding of medicine. In light of the specific passages that overtly converse with the Jewish tradition, this rereading of medicine as a Christian field of knowledge is possi-bly a further development in the inner dialogue of faith that Jean experienced.

Conclusions

Unfortunately, we possess only fragments of Jean’s biography and no record of his contemporaries’ reception of his works. Being privy only to his personal inner-dialogue—as it is revealed on the pages of his writings—it remains difficult to assess the impact of his medical output on Spanish medicine of the period and how his notions affected the religious dialogue of the period. Jean’s writings do reveal, however, the evolution that took place in a converted physician’s mind. Transformations are apparent in his choice of a designated audience, as he moved from his former community to his new one, chang-ing the language of composition. Metamorphosis is also visible in the shifting authority Jean relegated to medicine and religion in each of the texts. Whereas in the preface to the translation of Bernard, medicine seems to serve as a means of livelihood to provide for him in times of turbulence, Jean’s later writ-ings reveal his confidence in medical learning that enables translation choices to perforate the purviews of Judaism by introducing Christian practices and terminology. Sevillana medicina goes a step further, showing how medicine can be utilized to maintain and argue religious dogma. Thus, the three texts dis-cussed here, each in its own way, place medicine as a foundation for religious encounter—if not for the readers, then for the author/translator himself.

Whether this personal and idiosyncratic micro-history of Jean of Avignon was indicative of the life and experiences of other converts of the medical profession at the time remains a historiographical desideratum. Indeed, the same dilemmas facing Jean were confronted by his contemporaries, be they converts like himself who sought a place in society, or any Jewish or Christian physicians, in their pursuit of medical knowledge, trying to make sense of the two (or three) systems of thought they upheld. We may assume, however, that Jean had special license in both medical and religious domains: as a physician,

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he could converse with Jewish readers in a seemingly neutral terrain; while as a convert who was not employed at a medical faculty, he could incorporate religious ideas and biblical associations more freely than his fellow (univer-sity-based) physicians. Yet the works Jean wrote challenge the assumption that medieval medicine was a “neutral” field of learning—a misconception sus-tained by medieval physicians themselves. Medical learning was, even if unin-tentionally, a hub for religious encounter.81 For Jean of Avignon, this encounter inspired an inter-religious inner-conversation throughout his medical career.

81 Joseph Ziegler, “Bodies, Diseases, and the Preservation of Health as Foci of Inter-Religious Encounters in the Middle Ages,” in Médecine et religion: Compétitions, collaborations, conflits (XII‒XX siècles), ed. Luc Berlivet, Sara Cabibbo, Maria Pia Donato, Raimondo Michetti, and Marilyn Nicoud (Rome: École française de Rome, 2013), 43‒63.

\"jean of avignon: conversing in two worlds,\" medieval encounters 22 (2016): 165-192

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