A Collection of Short Philosophical and Polemical Works, [Italy, 15th-16th century]

Fols. 1r-26v: Zekhut Adam, by David Roquemartine. Treatise denying the dogma of Original Sin edited from a Guenzburg manuscript by S. Sachs in Yein ha-Levanon (Paris, 1866). 

Fols. 27r-35r: Letter from Joshua Lorki (Spain, ca. 1400) to the apostate Don Solomon ha-Levi (Pablo de Santa Maria). Lorki himself later converted to Christianity and assumed the name Geronimo de Santa Fé. Printed with variants from this manuscript and others by L. Landau, Das apologetische Schreiben des  Josua Lorki an den Abtrünnigen Don Salomon ha-Lewi (Antwerp, 1906), pp. 1-21.

Fols. 35r-40v: Letter to Shealtiel Bonafos by Astruc Rimoch, an apostate who assumed the name Francesc de Sant Jordi in order to persuade him to convert as well. Includes the reply to Rimoch by Solomon Bonafed. The beginning is slightly different from the critical edition which was based on other manuscripts and published by F. Talmage, in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1979), pp. 337-364 and this text ends a few lines before the end in that edition.

Fols. 40v-47r: Iggeret Al Tehi ka-Avotekha, the anti-Christian polemical letter to the apostate En David Bonet Bonjorn by Isaac ben Moses (Profet) Duran. An eclectic edition based on seventeen other manuscripts was published by F. Talmage, The Polemical writings of Profiat Duran (Jerusalem, 1981).

Fols. 47v-48v: A poem on the thirteen Divine attributes and the thirteen articles of faith by Akiva ben Judah ibn Alsheikh, edited from this manuscript by H. Hirschfeld, in Jewish Quarterly Review, 5 (1914/5), pp. 533, 541-542.

Fols. 48v-50v: An anonymous polemical work in Spanish in Hebrew characters posing twenty-nine questions that a Jew asked a Christian.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Menahem Schmelzer z”l and Benjamin Richler for cataloguing this manuscript.

Provenance

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 145)

Physical Description

50 leaves on paper, 7 5/8 x 5 ½ inches; 194 x 140 mm, written in Ashkenazic semi-cursive script in brown ink; light marginal foxing. Later flexible marbled wrappers, cloth spine.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 301)