Item #P4471 Zlatoe sochinenie Samuila Marokskago Ravvina Iudeiskago, zakliuchaiushcheesia v pis'makh k Isaaku, Ravvinu Kordubskomu, na oblichenie Iudeiskago zabluzhdeniia, v nabliudenii Moiseiskago zakona i ozhidanii Messii, iakoby eshche ne prishedshego. Perevod s Latinskago, vnov' ispravlennyi i nuzhnymi primechaniiami dopolnennyi v Kievopecherskoi Lavre [Golden Book of Rabbi Samuel of Morocco, consisting in letters to Isaac, Rabbi of Cordoba, on denouncing the Jewish error of observing the law of Moses in expectation of the Messiah, who supposedly has not yet arrived. Translated from the Latin, newly revised and supplied with necessary annotations at Kievo-Pecherskaia Lavra]. (Epistola Samuelis Maroccani ad Rabbi Isaacum). Marochitanus Samuel, Bishop of Marrakech Alfonsus Bonihominis.

Samuel, Marochitanus and Alfonsus Bonihominis, Bishop of Marrakech.

Zlatoe sochinenie Samuila Marokskago Ravvina Iudeiskago, zakliuchaiushcheesia v pis'makh k Isaaku, Ravvinu Kordubskomu, na oblichenie Iudeiskago zabluzhdeniia, v nabliudenii Moiseiskago zakona i ozhidanii Messii, iakoby eshche ne prishedshego. Perevod s Latinskago, vnov' ispravlennyi i nuzhnymi primechaniiami dopolnennyi v Kievopecherskoi Lavre [Golden Book of Rabbi Samuel of Morocco, consisting in letters to Isaac, Rabbi of Cordoba, on denouncing the Jewish error of observing the law of Moses in expectation of the Messiah, who supposedly has not yet arrived. Translated from the Latin, newly revised and supplied with necessary annotations at Kievo-Pecherskaia Lavra]. (Epistola Samuelis Maroccani ad Rabbi Isaacum).

Moscow: V Sinodal'noi Tipografii, 1837. Third Edition. Octavo (21 × 14 cm). Contemporary marbled wrappers; VII, [2], 95 pp. Good or better; light soil to first two pages; binding starting; wrappers torn along spine. Item #P4471

Third edition of this famous anti-Semitic treatise, a medieval Christian apologetic purportedly written in the eleventh century, but most likely written around 1339 by Alphonsus Bonihominis. "The author, a converted Jew, collects passages from the Old Testament in support of Christianity. The medieval Latin text which purports to be translated from an Arabic original by the Dominican friar Alphonsus Bonihominis in 1339, had a tremendous diffusion and was frequently printed and translated. Since no Arabic original of the text has ever been found, Steinschneider suggests that Alphonsus composed the letter himself, and merely imitated a different work by a Jew Samuel written in support of Islam after his conversion to that religion" (Paul Oskar Kristeller, Platonism, 188). Specifically, scholars assume Bonihominis was inspired by the Ifham al-Yahud by Samuel of Fez, another anti-Semitic treatise by a Jewish thinker who converted to Islam after seeing Muhammed in a prophetic dream. The work was first translated into Russian by hieromonk Varlaam (Glovatskii) and published in St. Petersburg in 1778; further editions followed in 1782, 1786, and 1827 before the present one, which is stated to be the third edition. All editions are scarce: KVK, OCLC show a copy of a 1827 edition at Brandeis and an 1855 copy at the NYPL.