(ANTISEMITICA)

[Bonihominis, Alfonsus]. [Epistola Samuelis]. [Title from incipit]: Hic Incipit Prohemium Unius Libelli Translati De Arabico In Latinum De Inductione Ad Fidem Catholicam Iudeorum A Quodam iudeo Confecto [Epistle of Rabbi Samuel]
Manuscript in Latin, on paper (unidentified watermark), with wide margins. Text in black ink, headings, initials and rubrications in red. With a note in later hand, on title page, concerning Bonihominis: “Parisis per manum fratris Alfonciis.”
pp. (39). Insignificant marginal worming, overall in fine condition. Modern half- vellum binding. 4to.
n.p: c. 1450
“The Epistle of Rabbi Samuel” was one of the most influential anti-Jewish treatise of the Middle Ages. Allegedly translated from the Arabic by the Spanish Dominican Orientalist, Alfonsus Bonihominis (d. 1353).===The epistle was supposedly composed by a Moroccan Jew ("Samuel Marochitanus") at the beginning of the 11th-century in which he shares with his colleague, Rabbi Isaac, the thinking which led him to be baptized and convert to Christianity.===According to the introduction by the Latin translator, Bonihominis, the text was originally written in Arabic in order to conceal it, since few Jews and even fewer Christians were familiar with that language. While Bishop of Marrakech, Bonihominis discovered the text in 1338 and translated it from Arabic into Latin in order to bring it to wider public attention.===The Epistle itself appears following this introduction. Most copies are divided into twenty-four, or occasionally twenty-five sections. The present version contains additional chapters.===Since the original Arabic text from which Bonihominis allegedly translated the Epistle has never been found, scholars are now clear that he composed the text himself. It subsequently grew to become a deeply influential anti-Jewish tract influencing such theologians with deep anti-Semitic tendencies as Anton Margaritha and Martin Luther.===See O. Limor, The Epistle of Rabbi Samuel of Morocco: A Best-Seller in the World of Polemics. In: Contra Iudaeos. Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (Tübingen, 1996) pp. 177–94.