Ezer ha-Dat and Ezer ha-Emunah, Moses Cohen of Tordesillas, [Italy, 16th-17th century]

Fols. 1r-10r: Ezer ha-Dat, a philosophical treatise composed in 1379 with the intention of strengthening the faith of the Jews who were subject to Christian proselytizing. This work was translated into Hebrew from the Spanish[?] original by Meir ben Jacob who wrote a short preface and added remarks in the text. This manuscript is one of only three extant copies of this short text, the other manuscripts are at Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms. Mich. 49 and Berlin, SB, Qu. 1026.

Fols. 10v-11v: The beginning of the preface to his anti-Christian polemic Ezer ha-Emmunah. The continuation is missing.

This volume contains a philosophical and a polemical work by Moses Kohen of Tordesillas, a fourteenth-century Spanish Rabbi. Moses moved to Avila, and was evidently appointed rabbi of the congregation there. He represented the Jewish side in the religious disputation ordered to be held in Avila in 1375. There were four sessions and Moses apparently emerged triumphant.

Almost all the extant manuscripts of these works were copied in Italy after the mid-sixteenth century or in the seventeenth century.

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

Provenance

Samuel David Luzzatto (ms. 90) — Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 187)

Physical Description

12 leaves on paper (one blank), 8 ½ x 6 inches; 216 x 152 mm, written in Italian cursive script in brown ink, catchwords, modern foliation in pencil; edges creased and frayed throughout, long tear and numerous pen trials to initial blank, fol. 11 detached, some light browning and soiling. Half brown cloth over green marbled boards.

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 283)