In another respect, too, his case was “typical,” or at least seemingly so: although (as mentioned earlier) we do not know the precise circumstances of his conversion to Christianity, we do know that in 1391—like many others—he was compelled to accept publicly a religion he rejected inwardly. And yet one fact sets Duran apart from others of his generation. Instead of quietly making his individual way in the world, he wrote works that reveal his intense inner commitment to remaining a Jew. Through those works, we have an unusual and highly illuminating opportunity to glimpse not only the compromises that might enable someone like him to live for decades as a Christian but the informed and polemically forceful theological justifications of his continued self-identification as a Jew.
To understand how he came to make the decisions he did, it helps first to rehearse what we know of his life and intellectual milieu. The next few chapters thus trace Duran’s biography, his professional life and teaching activities, and his basic philosophical orientation.
CHAPTER 1
Honoratus de Bonafide,
olim vocatus Profayt Duran, judeus
Born most likely in the mid- to late 1350s, Profayt Duran belonged to a relatively well-off family that had been settled in Perpignan, a city at the northernmost tip of Catalonia, for at least a generation.1 In absolute numbers, the Perpignan Jewish community was not impressive: hearth-tax rolls indicate between one hundred and three hundred families out of a total population of approximately eighteen thousand over the course of the fourteenth century, a size far below that of the Jewish community either in Barcelona or in Narbonne in southern France.2 But despite its small numbers, the Perpignan community flourished.
Under King Pere III (r. 1336–1387) and his successors Joan I (r. 1387–1396), Martí I (r. 1396–1410), and Fernando I (r. 1412–1416), Perpignan became a vigorous trading hub, its surrounding area having been transformed economically by the rising production of raw materials—wool, saffron, wheat, and oil—to meet the demands of a surging market.3 It was also a vibrant urban center, the second-largest Catalonian town after Barcelona. Jews took part in its broad commercial success; among cities in Catalonia, Perpignan was one of the two main centers for the provision of credit by Jews.4 In addition, as it was a royal seat, court patronage ensured a subsidy for Jewish scientific and other expertise.
Aside from its commercial promise, Perpignan was strikingly cosmopolitan, serving as a fertile meeting place and way station for Jewish philosophers, astronomers, physicians, and scientific craftsmen. Not only had it been the mainland capital of the island kingdom of Majorca from the thirteenth century until that kingdom became part of the Crown of Aragon in 1344, it was also an inland border city, set between Iberia and Provence and displaying cultural allegiances to each.5
Legally and administratively part of the Crown of Aragon, Perpignan had strong ties in northern Catalonia, in particular with Girona, Besalú, and Castelló d’Empuries, the three most important Jewish settlements in the neighboring province of Girona.6 At the same time, its Jews enjoyed close connections with the world of southern France, especially after the influx of Provençal Jews caused by the repeated French expulsions of the fourteenth century.7 Menaḥem ha-Meiri (1249–1315), the great leader of Perpignan Jewry in the early fourteenth century, associated his city with Provence, devoting a book to celebrating the Provençal customs of his hometown and deprecating those of the Sefaradim (“Iberian Jews”).8 Two important fourteenth-century Perpignan philosophers, Moshe Narboni (c. 1300–c. 1362) and Joseph ibn Kaspi (c. 1279–c. 1340), were of southern French extraction, with families originating in Narbonne and Argentières respectively.9
EDUCATION
Duran’s education seems for the most part to have been characteristic of his class. To begin at the most fundamental level, his knowledge of the Hebrew Bible was both comprehensive and subtle. Not only does he cite Scripture lavishly, but he does so with wit and elegance. By the middle of his life, he was capable of composing a Hebrew grammar whose examples are all taken from the Bible.
Duran was also versed in basic rabbinic literature, which he similarly cites regularly. His literary use of this material, however, does not imply more than a superficial training in rabbinics. Indeed, if Duran’s later description of an average student’s Talmud study is reflective of his own experience, he would have learned merely “some rules [i.e. the thirteen exegetical principles] and … the ways of give-and-take with challenges and responses.” For Duran, a comprehensive mastery of the Talmud is only for those few “whom the Lord calls”;10 for the rest, Talmud study consists in using its general laws to extract hidden rulings, and even that, he notes, cannot be mastered except by attending a yeshivah and studying with the scholars there. Elsewhere he refers to having done this himself in his youth.11
In religious philosophy, Duran knew both Jewish authors and those Muslim philosophers whose works had been translated into Hebrew and which had, in a sense, become “naturalized” into medieval Jewish philosophy. His precise use of those philosophical sources will be discussed in greater depth below.
As for languages, while Duran wrote exclusively in Hebrew, he would certainly have spoken Catalan, the local vernacular of Perpignan. He could also read Latin well enough to be able in the late 1390s to write his attack on contemporary Christianity (Kelimat ha-goyim) based on the Gospels and Christian scholastic writers, and even to include a critique of Jerome’s Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible. It is conceivable that he also knew some Arabic, for he makes reference to variant Arabic readings in his commentary on ibn Rushd’s Epitome of the Almagest—though these references could also have been taken from a second- or third-hand source.12 If he did know some Arabic, his familiarity would most likely have been connected to his training as a physician.
For, again like many of his class and education, Duran was a physician.13 Through the fourteenth century in the Crown of Aragon, Jews made up close to a third of all urban physicians, of whom, in this same period at least fifty are recorded as living or practicing in Perpignan. In addition to earning a substantial livelihood, successful Jewish physicians enjoyed high social status as well as privileges that included exemption from taxes, the right to move freely at night, and the right not to wear the Jewish badge while traveling.14 In Perpignan, as in Provence, physicians seem to have formed a large part of the wealthiest stratum of the Jewish community, and were hence in possession of the necessary capital to be active in moneylending.15 Well educated, they were often the guardians and perpetuators of Jewish scientific, philosophical, and literary culture.16
Beginning in 1387, the archives refer to Duran variously as magister, phisicus, and medicus. In Hebrew manuscripts by copyists and contemporaries, his name likewise appears often with the title—maestre—of a medical professional. At some point he composed a brief, explanatory Hebrew commentary on the first book of the Canon of Medicine by ibn Sina (Avicenna, c. 980–1037).17 Certainly his philosophical writings disclose a broad familiarity with medical issues. For example, in Ma‘aseh Efod, Duran uses frequent medical examples and illustrations, includes an aside on the biblical disease of tzara‘at, and inserts medicine into his general pedagogic curriculum, pointing to it as a science that conduces to spiritual and religious perfection and defending it vigorously against Naḥmanides.18 His eulogy for Abraham ben Isaac ha-Levi of Girona begins with an extended medical parable comparing the suffering Jewish people to a patient in agonizing pain, a pain that is resistant to healing both because of the faulty temperament of the patient and because of the grievousness of the wound.19
Although all of this, with the possible exception of the commentary on the Canon of Medicine, is certainly consistent with a medical professional, nowhere is there an indication of substantially greater knowledge than might be expected from a well-educated member